Florida Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis has won the race for the governorship of Florida, defeating his Democratic opponent, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum.
DeSantis had only a 1 percentage point advantage over Gillum (49.9 percent to 48.9 percent), with 99 percent of precincts reporting when Gillum conceded.
Gillum had pulled off an upset in the Democratic primary, winning the nomination after consistently polling in third for most of that race, but he was unable to carry that same momentum into the general election.
DeSantis had snagged an endorsement from President Donald Trump, which seemed to help him in both the primary and in November. Trump visited Florida and held a rally with DeSantis on Oct. 31. Trump told supporters at the rally that Florida, home of his Mar-a-Lago resort, was “my state also.”
“In less than one week, Americans will go to the polls in one of the most important elections of their lives,” Trump said at the rally, before qualifying that this election was “not as important as 2016. I’d like to say it, but not really.”
DeSantis gave up running for his congressional seat in order to focus on the race for governor.
During the campaign, Gillum repeatedly launched accusations of racism against DeSantis, which DeSantis firmly denied.
Gillum’s candidacy was plagued with allegations about his spending while he was mayor of Tallahassee and questions about whether or not an FBI investigation into the city during his tenure as mayor had extended to him. Documents released under a subpoena in the months leading up to his election suggested that an undercover FBI agent was staying close to Gillum. While that would not in itself indicate his guilt, it does strongly imply that the FBI had been paying more attention to him than he has admitted. Gillum had firmly insisted that he was innocent of any wrongdoing in either case.
The outgoing governor, Rick Scott, was term limited. He had a race of his own for one of Florida’s two seats in the U.S. Senate, challenging sitting Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).
This is a developing story and will be updated.
