Amid recount, Rick Scott claims victory and heads to Washington, D.C.

TALLAHASSEE – As Florida counties continue to tally ballots in a machine recount in the U.S. Senate race, Gov. Rick Scott is heading to Washington, D.C., this week to get acclimated to his new role as a senator.

Scott leads incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson by 12,562 votes — or 0.15 percentage points of about 8.2 million votes cast — after the unofficial results were counted. That was within the 0.5 percent margin to trigger an automatc machine recount per state law.

If the machine recount results in a similar difference, that’ll be within the 0.25 percent that would trigger a hand recount of overvotes and undervotes – ballots that either marked too many choices or left the race blank.

That process likely won’t end until Sunday, with official results certified on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

But Scott isn’t waiting to declare victory and “make Washington work” – a key slogan and platform of his campaign.

“We won the election,’’ Scott told the Washington Post. “I'm looking forward to being up there. … I've got a very specific agenda I've put out of what I want to accomplish.’’

Part of Scott’s visit will include orientation for freshman members of Congress, but so far there’s no word on which committees he’ll sit on.

Meanwhile, he and his team are continuing their campaign to get Nelson to throw in the towel.

“[Nelson] has to decide on Thursday, when he’s going to trail significantly; does he want his entire legacy to be painted as the guy who wouldn’t go away when he was voted out by the people of Florida?” Scott told Fox News in an interview Tuesday.

Nelson already was in Washington on Tuesday, where on Capitol Hill he repeated his call initially made Monday for Scott to recuse himself from the recount.

“It’s become obvious that Mr. Scott cannot oversee the process,’’ Nelson said.