Scott takes U.S. Senate seat from Nelson
TALLAHASSEE — Gov. Rick Scott won the U.S. Senate race over incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson on Sunday, after a hand recount showed him with a 10,033-vote victory in one of the closest, and at nearly $200 million, the most expensive statewide races in Florida history.
“I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service,” Scott said. “Now the campaign truly is behind us, and that’s where we need to leave it. We must do what Americans have always done: come together for
the good of our state and our country. … My focus will not be on looking backward, but on doing exactly what I ran on: Making Washington Work.’’
In the end, the tally had Scott’s margin of victory as 0.12 percentage points out of more than 8.19 million votes cast.
“I was not victorious in this race but I still wish to strongly re-affirm the cause for which we fought: A public office is a public trust,” Nelson said.
For Nelson, 76, it likely spells the end of a political career that began in 1972 when he was elected to the Florida House and included times in the U.S. House and as Florida Insurance Commissioner before being elected to the Senate in 2000.
In his concession speech, he warned of a “gathering darkness in our politics in recent years.”
“We have to move beyond a politics that aims not just to defeat but to destroy; where truth is treated as disposable, where falsehoods abound, and the free press is assaulted as the ‘enemy of the people,’” Nelson said.
In the agriculture commissioner race, Democrat Nikki Fried’s 5,037-vote lead over Republican Matt Caldwell grew to 6,753 votes after the manual recount, or 0.08 percentage points.
Fried would become just the second Democrat to hold a Cabinet position in Florida in the past 20 years. Alex Sink was Chief Financial Officer from 2007-2011.
“This victory belongs to the people of Florida, you chose a new vision, one that reflects the priorities of the people. To everyone who didn’t vote for me, I will be your voice in Tallahassee, too,” Fried said.
Florida’s razor-tight race for governor was decided Saturday night when Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded to Republican Ron DeSantis. A machine recount gave DeSantis the victory by 33,683 votes, a difference of 0.41 percentage points.
Official election results are scheduled to be certified at 9 a.m. Tuesday. State law allows for a 10-day window for the results to be challenged in court.
If there are no challenges, the results cap a caustic election cycle that broke records for the amount of money spent in a midterm year.
By Nov. 2, the Senate candidates alone had spent a combined $91 million, while outside groups pumped in another $89 million, bringing the total to $180 million, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Scott was personally responsible for more than a quarter of that, putting up more than $50 million of his own wealth into the race. The money paid for ads, starting in the spring, that tagged Nelson as an aging, lifelong politician
who accomplished little in
Congress.
Nelson’s campaign, knowing he’d have fewer resources, waited largely until after the primary to respond on the airwaves with negative attacks of their own, portraying Scott as a millionaire who profited from his time in office.
Scott began the campaign keeping his distance from President Donald Trump in an apparent attempt to lure more moderates to vote for him. But in the final days before the election, Scott appeared on the campaign trail with the president as he stumped for both Scott and DeSantis.
Scott and Nelson both suspended their campaigns after Category 4 Hurricane Michael slammed into the Florida Panhandle in early October. Both spent time in the disaster area to offer support from the state and federal governments.
One of the main inflection points was the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. At first, Scott ran ads slamming Nelson for “refusing to meet” with Kavanaugh, but Nelson contended he tried but their schedules never synced up.
Then came the allegation of attempted rape and the testimony of the alleged victim in Senate hearings, galvanizing opposition from Democrats and support from Republicans for Kavanaugh’s nomination. Nelson was mum on his decision for awhile before deciding to vote against him.
After missing the machine recount deadline last week, Broward County completed the hand recount on time on Sunday. The county, which failed to timely report results on election night, missed the machine recount deadline by two minutes when it failed to upload the results to the state website in time.
Broward elections officials met their noon deadline Sunday, submitting their final election tallies to the state with 52 minutes to spare.
The canvassing board adjourned at 11:18 a.m. to loud applause.
A crowd of reporters waited for Broward Supervisor of Elections Brenda Snipes to give a comment.
“It’s a big operation, but there are some things that need to be tweaked,” Snipes told a reporter who asked what lessons she has learned from this year’s bumpy recount.
Broward’s ballot recount hit a snag Saturday, with Snipes saying 2,040 ballots had been either misplaced, misfiled or mixed in with another stack. Those ballots did not get counted in the machine recount completed on Thursday.