Breaking news late Tuesday evening: Republican Congressman Ron DeSantis has defeated Andrew Gillum, the Democrat Mayor of Tallahassee, to become Florida’s next Governor.
As soon as precincts closed in the Panhandle and votes started to be tallied from the conservative districts, the race stayed too close to call for several hours. In the end, Gillum was unable to stockpile enough votes from Democratic strongholds like Dade and Broward County and DeSantis maintained a narrow lead, outside of the 0.5% recount threshold.
DeSantis will take over as outgoing Gov. Rick Scott leaves the Governor’s Mansion due to term limits. At the time of publication of this article, Scott also has a narrow lead in his effort to unseat incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. If Scott is successful, all statewide offices in Florida will be in Republican hands: Ashley Moody, Matt Caldwell, and Jimmy Patronis all won their races for Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, and CFO respectively, and Florida’s other Senate seat is held by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
Rubio tweeted his congratulations to DeSantis and his running mate, Jeanette Nunez.
Congratulations to @RonDeSantisFL & @RepJNunez. I am so proud of both of them. They are going to do a great job for #Florida. #Sayfie pic.twitter.com/JCYuAQx34B
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 7, 2018
UPDATE: Scott has been projected the winner in the Florida Senate race.
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Praise God – America is beginning to uphold “Under God We Trust”