The race for Florida governor is likely heading to a recount after Democrat-heavy counties tallied more ballots that allowed Andrew Gillum to narrow the margins against Republican Ron DeSantis by less than half a percentage point.
On Thursday afternoon, the margin in the race fell to 0.47 percentage points — just a hair below the threshold for a mandatory machine recount — just as the Democrat in the race for agriculture commissioner, Nikki Fried, for the first time took the lead over Republican Matt Caldwell by 583 votes.
In all, an unprecedented six Florida races are heading for recounts: Florida governor, U.S. Senate, two state House races and a state Senate seat.
Of the three statewide candidates whose races are likely to be recounted, Gillum has the most ground to make up. As of Thursday afternoon, he trailed DeSantis by 38,515 votes. To surpass DeSantis, Gillum would need to win more than 105,000 ballots by a huge, 37-point margin — and it’s not immediately clear if there are even 105,000 votes left to be counted.
