Florida: The Amazing Disappearing Leads
Larry Thornberry
November 9, 2018, 6:50 pm
U.S. Senate and governor’s office hang in the balance.
Tampa
The saying, often attributed to Joe Stalin, is likely apocryphal. But it goes something like this: “It doesn’t matter who votes. It only matters who counts the votes.†It’s unlikely old Joe, who is doubtless burning in Hell, said this. There’s no evidence he ever gave voting a moment’s thought in his entire murderous life. Regardless of who did or didn’t say it, it’s being bruited about Florida just now, and for good reason. It has enough truth quotient to it to make Republicans very nervous.
Florida Republicans better be at general quarters now. All hands on deck to defend two big but narrow Election Night wins. When the voting was over Tuesday Republican Ron DeSantis held a one-point lead over Democrat Andrew Gillum in the governor’s race. Republican challenger Rick Scott held a smaller lead over incumbent Democrat U.S, Senator Bill Nelson. Since then, with all manner of new votes to be counted being discovered, the leads of these two Republicans have diminished, putting both races into at least the less than one half of one percent levels that requires a machine recount. This would be the business of about a week. The Scott/Nelson race is now within the one-quarter of one percent level that calls for a hand recount. This could take until Thanksgiving or until the Twelfth of Never, whichever comes last.
By Friday morning the DeSantis margin over Gillum had shrunk to 36,000 votes out of 8.2 million cast. By the same time Scott’s Tuesday night lead of 56,000 votes over Nelson had shrunk to fewer than 15,000, calling for the Twelfth of Never standard.
more
https://spectator.org/florida-the-amazing-disappearing-leads/
