The Miami Herald reports a heartbreaker. But this won’t be the last time we hear from him. Count on it:
Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum, for the second time, conceded the race for Florida governor to Republican Ron DeSantis on Saturday, three days after a statewide machine recount indicated DeSantis retained his winning lead and as contentious recounts in two other statewide races draw to a close.
“We said we would fight until the last vote is counted,” said Gillum with his wife R. Jai on Facebook Live Saturday afternoon. “Now that we are rounding that process out, R. Jai and I wanted to take a moment to congratualte Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida.”
Gillum had conceded on Election Night to DeSantis when it appeared the Republican former congressman had won by a narrow, if insurmountable, margin. But after that margin further narrowed in the days after the midterms to within a half of a percentage point, and a statewide machine recount was triggered, Gillum held a brief press conference last weekend in which he withdrew his concession and called for counties to “count every vote.”