Republicans were able to keep Florida’s U.S. Senate seat red and sweep the state’s cabinet Tuesday night, but as of press time Democrat Alex Sink was refusing to concede the gubernatorial race to Rick Scott.
As of 12:45 a.m. today, the race for governor was still officially undecided. Sources from the Sink campaign said they believed the final tally would be within 20,000 votes, triggering a recount. Problems were reported with counting the ballots in Hillsborough.
Rick Scott, a wealthy businessman, had a slight lead over Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink. In Alachua County, Sink won with 63 percent of the vote over Scott’s 36 percent.
Patricia Aguerrevere, a fourth-year art history student at UF, said she wasn’t happy with either of the candidates but voted for Scott.
“It’s more of a lesser-of-two-evils kind of thing,” she said. “I’m a conservative and Rick Scott was more conservative than Alex Sink. It was more that Rick Scott would do less damage. They’re both bad.”
Kristin Klein, president of UF College Democrats, said Scott winning would be a tragedy for Florida, adding, “I think people [would] quickly recognize the mistake.”.
And while the Democrats were trounced across the state, Klein said she was happy with how hard the UF Democrats campaigned.
Unlike the gubernatorial race, the outcome of the Senate race was called by the Associated Press just after 8 p.m. — only minutes after the polls closed in the panhandle. Marco Rubio won 48 percent in the state, compared to Gov. Charlie Crist’s 27 percent and Congressman Kendrick Meek’s 20 percent.
Rubio also won Alachua County with 38 percent, while Crist had 30 percent and Meek finished third with 28 percent.
Republicans swept the cabinet races, with Pam Bondi as attorney general, Jeff Atwater as chief financial officer and Adam Putnam as commissioner of agriculture.
Florida voters also passed three of the six constitutional amendments on the ballot, which each required 60 percent approval.
Amendment 4, which would have given citizens a vote on changes to development plans failed to pass. Amendments 5 and 6, which aim to end unfair legislative redistricting, passed. The amendments could have an enormous affect on the state’s legislature in future election years. Voters also passed a property tax discount to active military personnel. Amendment 8, which would have loosened the state’s class size requirements, and Amendment 1, which would have ended public-campaign finance, failed to pass.
