Nov 10, 2018 - Politics & Policy

Florida Senate and governor races head to recounts

Bill Nelson,Rick Scott, Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis. Photos: Getty Images

Florida's secretary of state has ordered recounts of both the governor and senator races with candidates in each race within a half of a percentage point of each other, the AP reports.

The details: Florida, by law, must conduct a recount when results fall within the margin of error, the AP explains. Ron DeSantis, Republican candidate for governor currently leads the race with 49.6% of the vote while Andrew Gillum, the Democratic candidate, holds 49.2%. Rick Scott, current governor and candidate for senator, holds 50.1% of the vote in the Senate race while incumbent Senator Bill Nelson holds 49.9%.

Driving the news: President Trump accused Florida Democrats of attempting to fix the election in favor of Gillum and Nelson despite having no supporting evidence to back up his claim.

  • On Saturday, Trump responded to the recount, again accusing the elections of attempting to be stolen.
  • Scott filed a lawsuit against Broward County's supervisor of elections and accused officials of withholding information as the race tightened after he declared victory over Nelson.

What's next: The recount order applies to the entire state, so all 8,302,983 votes must be recounted over the next five days, the Miami Herald reports.

Go deeper

Orion Rummler
10 mins ago - Health

Florida reports another daily record for coronavirus deaths

Nurse practitioner Barbara Corral and a research assistant conduct a COVID-19 vaccination study on August 7 in Hollywood, Florida. Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Florida's health department on Tuesday reported 276 new coronavirus deaths, surpassing the state's record from July 31.

The big picture: The state also recorded over 5,800 new cases — on the low side for a state that is one of the domestic epicenters for the virus.

Go deeper (<1 min. read)Arrow
Axios
Updated 49 mins ago - Politics & Policy

Coronavirus dashboard

Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

  1. Global: Total confirmed cases as of 11:30 a.m. ET: 20,126,452 — Total deaths: 737,285 — Total recoveries: 12,380,410 — Map.
  2. U.S.: Total confirmed cases as of 11:30 a.m. ET: 5,098,452 — Total deaths: 163,533 — Total recoveries: 1,670,755 — Total tests: 62,513,174 — Map.
  3. States: State testing plans fall short of demand — National Governors Association's bipartisan leaders express concern over Trump's unemployment order.
  4. Axios-Ipsos poll: 1 in 2 has a personal connection to COVID-19.
  5. Business: Moderna reveals it may not hold patent rights for vaccine.
  6. World: New Zealand reports first local cases for 102 days — Why you should be skeptical of Russia's vaccine claims.
Go deeper (<1 min. read)Arrow
Sara Fischer
3 hours ago - Economy & Business

Exclusive: Facebook cracks down on political content disguised as local news

Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

Facebook is rolling out a new policy that will prevent U.S. news publishers with "direct, meaningful ties" to political groups from claiming the news exemption within its political ads authorization process, executives tell Axios.

Why it matters: Since the 2016 election, reporters and researchers have uncovered over 1,200 instances in which political groups use websites disguised as local news outlets to push their point of view to Americans.

Go deeper (3 min. read)Arrow