On Tuesday night at around 11 p.m., Florida’s Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum offered a heartfelt concession speech. It was a nail biting race, and around the time of the speech, his opponent, Republican Ron DeSantis had 49.9 percent of the vote (4,015,176 votes) and Gillum held 48.9 percent (3,938,351) with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
However, Gillum may have conceded a little too fast, as votes continue to be counted, the gap between the two, which wasn’t substantial to begin with, is closing even more. Currently, CNN data has DeSantis still in the lead with 49.6 of the votes, but Gillum is fast behind of him with 49.1 percent of the votes. Gillum is only about 42,935 votes behind of DeSantis.
As Talking Points Memo notes, that is only about 0.6 percent of the vote. Under Florida state law, a margin of 0.5 percent or less leads to a machine recount of the ballots, while a margin of .25 or less would lead to a recount of the votes by hand.
On Thursday, Gillum’s campaign issued a statement saying that it is “committed to ensuring every single vote in Florida is counted.”
“On Tuesday night, the Gillum for Governor campaign operated with the best information available about the number of outstanding ballots left to count. Since that time, it has become clear there are many more uncounted ballots than was originally reported,” the statement read. “Our campaign, along with our attorney Barry Richard, is monitoring the situation closely and is ready for any outcome, including a state-mandated recount. Mayor Gillum started his campaign for the people, and we are committed to ensuring every single vote in Florida is counted.”
It ain’t over til the fat lady sings, and it looks like Andrew Gillum still has a shot at being Florida’s first Black governor.
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