2018 United States Senate election in Florida


The 2018 United States Senate election in Florida was held on November 6, 2018, alongside a gubernatorial election, elections to the U.S. House of Representatives and other state and local elections. Incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson ran for re-election to a fourth term, but was very narrowly defeated by Republican Governor Rick Scott. This was the closest senate race in the state's history.
The results of the race were in dispute for 12 days following the election. The results showed that Nelson was narrowly trailing Scott, but the margin remained below 0.5%, triggering an automatic recount under Florida law. A controversial recount ensued, with both campaigns claiming irregularities. Following the recount, Florida elections officials confirmed Scott's victory on November 18, 2018. Scott received 50.05% of the vote, while Nelson received 49.93%; the margin of victory was 10,033 votes out of 8.19 million votes cast. Both in terms of raw vote margin and by percentage of difference, this was the closest Senate election in the 2018 cycle. Scott's victory marks the first time since the Reconstruction era that Republicans have held both Senate seats in Florida.

Background

As of the second quarter of 2018, incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson had a 44%-34% approval rating among his constituents. Republican President Donald Trump also held a positive approval rating of 49%-47% in Florida as of August 2018. Trump won the state in 2016 by 1.2% over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Nelson was challenged by term-limited Governor Rick Scott, who put more than $86 million of his own money into his successful 2010 and 2014 gubernatorial bids. Despite having won re-election in 2012 by a 13% margin, Nelson was considered potentially vulnerable; he had been the only statewide elected Democrat in Florida since 2011, and his previous opponents, Connie Mack IV and Katherine Harris, were seen as much weaker challengers than Scott. Additionally, he was one of 10 incumbent Democratic Senators running in a state that had been carried by President Trump in 2016. Nelson was described as a "low-key centrist" that might not be able to energize progressive voters.
After being encouraged by President Trump to enter the Senate race, Scott announced his candidacy on April 9, 2018, weeks after the end of his final regular legislative session as governor. During the campaign, Scott sought to avoid mentioning President Trump and at times criticized or distanced himself from actions of the Trump administration, whereas in the past he used his friendship with Trump to boost his profile and had been an early and vocal supporter of Trump in 2016 and was reported to speak to President Trump every one or two weeks by The Tampa Bay Times. Nevertheless, Trump endorsed Scott in his Senate bid. As of the first quarter of 2018, Scott held a 54%-35% approval rating among his constituents, with a majority of Florida voters believing the state was moving in the right direction under Scott's administration.
Both Nelson's and Scott's responses to Hurricanes Irma and Michael, which made landfall in September 2017 and October 2018 respectively, were closely watched during the campaign season.

Republican primary

The Republican primary was considered merely a formality, as Governor Scott's lone challenger was a perennial candidate who was running for Senate seats in eight other Republican primaries across the country. No other notable Republicans entered the race before or after Scott announced his candidacy.

Candidates

Nominee

Hypothetical polling------------

Results

Democratic primary

As both of Senator Nelson's primary opponents failed to qualify for the ballot, no Democratic primary was held.

Candidates

Nominee

  • Bill Nelson, incumbent U.S. Senator since 2001; U.S. Representative from FL-11 1979–1991

    Declined

  • Randolph Bracy, State Senator since 2016
  • Tim Canova, law professor specializing in banking and finance; candidate for FL-23 in 2016
  • Pam Keith, Navy veteran, labor attorney; candidate for U.S. Senate in 2016

    Withdrew

  • Tamika Lyles, Air Force veteran, mediator, and philanthropist
  • Randy White, pastor, bishop, philanthropist, and activist

    Libertarian Party

Candidates

Withdrew

Candidates

Withdrew

  • Ed Shoemaker, psychologist

    Independents and write-ins

Candidates

Declared

  • Lateresa Jones, life coach; candidate for lieutenant governor in 2014 and U.S. Senate in 2016
  • Howard Knepper, businessman and real estate developer; candidate for president in 2012
  • Michael S. Levinson, candidate for FL-13 in 2014 and the 2014 special election
  • Charles Frederick Tolbert, pastor
  • David Weeks

    Withdrew

  • Edward Janowski
  • Scott McCatty
  • Marcia R. Thorne, pastor
  • Angela Marie Walls-Windhauser, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2016

    General election

The election was expected to be a key race in determining which party would control the U.S. Senate in 2019. According to The Cook Political Report, the race was one of the 10 most competitive U.S. Senate races in the nation. It was also described as the most expensive U.S. Senate race in the country.
Scott's involvement in a large Medicare fraud case stirred controversy during the general election campaign. Scott responded with ads accusing Nelson of having cut Medicare benefits and stolen from Medicare; fact-checkers found that both of Scott's assertions were "mostly false." During the campaign, Scott characterized Nelson as a "socialist"; PolitiFact described the assertion as "pants-on-fire" false.
Gun control was a key issue in this race. The election comes less than nine months after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, the deadliest school shooting in American history. Nelson also mentioned the Orlando nightclub shooting that occurred in June 2016 and killed 49 people, stating that "nothing was done" by Scott's administration. In the wake of Stoneman Douglas, Scott raised the age to purchase a gun from 18 to 21, set a three-day waiting period to purchase assault-style weapons, and banned bump stocks, moves that Nelson described as "doing the bare minimum." The National Rifle Association opposed Scott's legislation.
Environmental issues also took on a prominent role in the race. Scott and his administration had been heavily criticized for weakening regulations designed to protect the environment, even going as far as to instruct the FDEP not to use the words "climate change" or "global warming" in official reports. Because of this, Scott was blamed for the state's worsening algae blooms, even being dubbed "Red Tide Rick" on social media. Scott blamed the toxic blooms on Nelson and on Congress' general inefficiency.

Debates

  • , October 2, 2018

    Endorsements

Predictions

Fundraising

Polling

Hypothetical polling------

;with Pam Bondi

Initial results and recount

The results of the race were in dispute for 12 days following the election. Because Scott's lead over Nelson was less than 0.5% of the vote, an automatic recount was triggered under Florida law. A controversial recount ensued, with both campaigns claiming irregularities.
Both candidates traded accusations of voter suppression and voter fraud. Two lawsuits were filed by the Scott campaign after the election against the Supervisor of Elections in both Palm Beach and Broward Counties while the Nelson campaign filed one against the Secretary of State in Florida. On November 9, the Scott campaign won both of their lawsuits while the Secretary of State lawsuit has yet to be decided. Notably, election officials in Broward County had to receive police protection after accusations of voter fraud were made by a few members of Congress.
Additionally, a number of mail-in ballots were found in a mail distribution center in the city of Opa-locka three days after the election. The Miami-Dade Elections Department considered the votes to be uncountable due to not making it to the department by the close of polls.
The deadline for all ballots to be machine counted was 3pm EST on Thursday, November 15, 2018, and the revised totals triggered a statewide hand-recount of rejected ballots. At least three counties missed the deadline.
  • Broward: Finished machine count before the deadline, but started the upload of results around 2:45 pm EST and finished uploading at 3:02 pm EST. The upload was rejected due to being past the deadline.
  • Hillsborough: The loss of 846 votes in machine counting. This was presumed to be due to a power outage.
  • Palm Beach: Machines bought from Sequoia Voting Systems ended up breaking down on the 13th, forcing a new recount on approximately 175,000 votes. Upon completing the second recount, 30 precincts had tallies that differed from the tallies completed on the day of the election.
In addition, Lee County determined that they had not properly sorted out the amount of undervotes on ballots for manual recount. The initial number was approximately 4,000 votes before the machine recount brought the number to around 15,000 votes. This delayed the counting process until the votes were properly separated.

Results

Florida elections officials announced on November 18, 2018 that Scott had prevailed. Scott received 50.05% of the vote, while Nelson received 49.93%; the margin of victory was 10,033 votes out of 8.19 million votes cast. Nelson then conceded the race to Scott.

Edison Research exit poll

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