Midterms Update: Recounts in the Governor’s and Senate Races

Alanna Felton, Editor-in-Chief

After several close races throughout the state of Florida that left voters in limbo for the past week, it has now been announced that votes from the races for Governor, US Senator, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, and two state representatives will be recounted.

Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D) conceded to former US Representative Ron DeSantis (R) in the governor’s race on Tuesday night. However, Gillum is now trailing DeSantis by just 0.5 percentage points, prompting a machine recount of all ballots.

In the Senate race, current Florida Governor Rick Scott’s (R) lead over incumbent Bill Nelson (D) is less than 0.25 percentage points, meaning that all ballots from machines that couldn’t determine which candidate got the vote must be recounted by hand.

It appeared on Tuesday night that Nikki Fried (D) had lost the race for Florida Commissioner of Agriculture to Matt Caldwell (R). However, Fried has since taken the lead by 0.06 percentage points, and has declared victory despite the machine recount now taking place in her race.

Here in Hillsborough county, the state representative race between Dana Cruz (D) and incumbent Dana Young (R) is also heading to a machine recount. Cruz is currently in the lead by just 376 votes.

Each individual Florida county can decide when they want to start recounting votes, but all counties must be finished with the recount by this Thursday, November 15, at 3 p.m. Hillsborough county began recounting votes this morning.