After Nearly 2 Weeks and 2 Recounts, Florida Senate Race Ends

After two recounts, a deluge of lawsuits and loaded political rhetoric, the 12-day election marathon in Florida is finally drawing to a close.

According to official results from the Florida Division of Elections, current Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, was ahead of Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in the contested Senate race. Scott’s lead narrowed slightly to about 10,000 votes.

Scott announced that Nelson had called him to concede.

“I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service,” said Scott in a statement.

“We may have been outspent in this campaign, but we were never outworked” said Nelson in an address to supporters.

Official results were due to Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s office from Florida’s 67 counties at noon on Sunday. About an hour before that deadline, Broward County, which has been one of two counties at the epicenter of the state’s recount drama, announced that it had completed its recount and submitted the results.

The results turned in by county election officials on Sunday will reflect those recounted totals, as well as ballots received from military and overseas voters. As long as ballots from abroad were postmarked before Nov. 6, they will be counted if they were received by county officials by Friday.

A federal judge has denied a number of lawsuits filed by Nelson in an effort to put a dent in the deficit. They included a request to count vote-by-mail domestic ballots that were received after Election Day and a request to nullify a state law that requires voters to use the same marking method for different races across their ballots.

he Democratic nominee for governor, Andrew Gillum, conceded Saturday night after concluding his own recount would not sufficiently close the gap with his opponent, Republican Ron DeSantis.

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