Florida voted on Tuesday to approve a constitutional amendment that will restore voting rights to more than 1 million people with felony records. The state also appears narrowly set to send Republicans to the governor’s mansion and the US Senate — both major upsets for Democrats. The results have led to a question: What if
Florida Democrat Sen. Bill Nelson called Wednesday for a recount in his race for re-election against Republican Gov. Rick Scott. In a statement from Nelson’s office, the longtime incumbent said Scott had prematurely declared victory in the race, which CNN has not yet called. In Florida, an automatic recount is triggered when the final margin
The super-tight race for Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services could have a recount in its future. Rep. Matt Caldwell, the Republican challenger, leads Fort Lauderdale attorney and lobbyist Nicole “Nikki” Fried by about 0.16 percentage points as of Wednesday morning. The threshold for a manual recount is 0.25 points. (Read more in TampaBay.com)
Florida voters approved Amendment 4 on Tuesday night in the 2018 midterm elections, restoring voting rights to more than 1 million people in the state who were previously convicted of felonies. “This is transformative in Florida,” Howard Simon, Executive Director of the ACLU of Florida tells TIME. “We will no longer have second-class citizens.” (Read
Almost lost in the election night turmoil was the fact that four local Democrats actually out-performed in Charlotte County over the Dems at the top of the ticket. Olivia Babis gathered nearly 39% in Charlotte County’s portion of the District 23 State Senate Race. Catherine Price won better than 37% in the District 26 State
Vielka Wambold, president of the Democratic Hispanic Caucus of Florida, was working for the Charlotte County Democrats at the Mid-County Regional Library and said there seemed to be more energy this election than in the past. For voters on both sides, she said, “Nothing’s going to stop them.” (Read more in Sun)
Powered by a highly-motivated Republican turnout and another $60 million from his vast personal fortune, Gov. Scott clinched a seat in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday and dislodged deeply-entrenched Democrat Bill Nelson from office. (Read more in TampaBay.com)
Ron DeSantis was elected governor of Florida on Tuesday, handing President Trump an important victory and extending the Republican Party’s dominance in the nation’s third-largest state. Mr. DeSantis, a 40-year-old former congressman, fended off his opponent, Andrew Gillum, one of the strongest candidates Florida Democrats had fielded in years. Republicans have now won every election
Do you need information to help your neighbors vote on this election day? Here it is. All the answers to your voting questions on CharlotteDems.com.
Plenty of internet experts have all sorts of predictions as to what will happen Tuesday night. But those putting their money where their mouth is see good news for Democratic candidates Andrew Gillum and Bill Nelson in their respective races for Governor and U.S. Senate. As of the drafting of this piece (though with numbers subject to change), the
Emma González joined a dozen student leaders on the steps of the state Capitol Monday with a message to young voters: “Tomorrow is your chance to be a hero for yourself.” The students have been traveling the country on a nine-month voter registration effort — the Vote for Our Lives tour. (Read more in TampaBay.com)
In the final push before Election Day, Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum is getting a boost from celebrities who have converged in Tallahassee to campaign for him.
The senior senator came out first, all drawl and political muscle memory — the man with the golden-est hair in the room and an entrance song, “Eye of the Tiger,” from 1982. “Wow,” Senator Bill Nelson managed, greeting a few thousand Democrats packed between the barricades of an indoor event space on Friday to see
On the eve of the gubernatorial election, a new poll shows Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum leading Republican candidate Ron DeSantis by 7 points. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday has Gillum leading DeSantis 50 percent to 43 percent among likely voters. (Read more in Local10.com)
Democrats hold slim leads in Florida’s pivotal statewide races in the final push to Tuesday’s midterm elections, a poll released Monday found. In a Senate race that will help to determine control of the chamber, incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson leads Republican Gov. Rick Scott by 4 percentage points, according to the NBC News/Marist survey. The Democrat
With Early Voting now over, here are the statewide numbers. Democrats hold a slight lead in early voting and trailed in Vote by Mail. Vote by Mail ballots can still be returned although time is very short. As of Monday morning, the totals of both Early Votes and Vote-by-Mail ballots are 2,043,167 Republican, 2,067,856 Democratic.
Florida’s turnout broke the 5-million mark overnight, largely on the strength of the largest early voting turnouts yet on Sunday in the big Democratic counties of Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. By Monday morning, turnout was 5,094,645 or 38.4 percent of the Florida electorate. Democrats make up 40.6 percent of that total, and Republicans account
At some point, it became clear that this election would be different. When organizers pulled out stops they normally save for presidential campaigns, when a U.S. Senate contest cost nearly $100 million, when a worldwide pop star who has never lived in Florida endorsed a candidate on Instagram, it certainly began to feel different. (Read
Nine months after 17 classmates and teachers were gunned down at their Florida school, Parkland students are finally facing the moment they’ve been leading up to with marches, school walkouts and voter-registration events throughout the country: their first Election Day. (Read more in PBS.org)
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue described the stakes of the Florida governor’s election next week as being “cotton-pickin’ important” at a campaign event on Saturday for Republican Ron DeSantis. DeSantis is running against Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who is African American. (See VIDEO on CNN.com)
Andrew Gillum shared a stage with laid-back Mr. Margaritaville Saturday, but struck a somber note a day after a gunman killed two people in a Tallahassee yoga studio. Appearing with headliner Jimmy Buffett, the Tallahassee mayor and Democratic nominee for governor pledged to a sun-baked crowd at an outdoor amphitheater that his election to the