Nelson Campaign Sees Re-Election Bid Headed to Recount as Vote Gap Narrows
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Bill Nelson, D-Fla., continued to narrow the vote gap Thursday in his re-election bid against Republican Gov. Rick Scott as ballot counting continued. Nelson’s campaign expressed confidence in the need for a manual recount of…
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ballots once an initial result is complete. All counties must submit preliminary results to the state by Saturday. Nelson “is going to prevail,” said campaign lawyer Marc Elias on a call with reporters. "I am very measured in how I treat what I say. When I say it is currently a jump ball … I mean that.” The Scott campaign countered that “when Elias says ‘win,’ he means ‘steal.’” Scott led by more than 17,000 votes Thursday, down from a 30,000-vote margin Wednesday. Remaining votes left to be counted were concentrated in two South Florida counties that favored Nelson in earlier tallies, though most counties also were still counting provisional ballots. The contest has the attention of many in the telecom sector because a Nelson loss would mean an open contest for lead Democrat on Senate Commerce with no clear front-runner (see 1811020048). The Senate’s composition in the next Congress stood Thursday at 51 Republicans and 46 Democrats, with the outcome in the Nelson-Scott race and two other contests undecided.