The race for U.S. Senate in Florida between Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott could be headed to a recount. 
 
 >>>Complete election results here 
 
 Scott declared victory Tuesday night, but Nelson’s chief of staff says there will be a recount in the Senate race, per state law. 
 
 "We are proceeding to a recount," Sen. Nelson said this morning, in a brief statement. 
 
 Scott’s lead in the race is 38,717 votes out of more than 8 million cast — a margin of less than one half of 1 percent. 
 
 Nelson's campaign put out a statement on Wednesday saying the race remains tight and Scott prematurely claimed victory. Under Florida law, there is an automatic recount if the margin is one-half of one percent or less. Scott leads Nelson by slightly more than 30,000 votes out of more than 8.1 million votes cast. 
 
 State officials will not officially order a recount until Saturday, when the first set of unofficial returns are due. 
 
 Scott spokesman Chris Hartline criticized Nelson for pushing for a recount, calling it a "sad way" for him to end his political career. 
 
 Rick Scott's campaign put out a statement that said it is embarrassing Nelson would resort to "these low tactics" after voters have clearly spoken. 
 
 Under state law in Florida, a recount is mandatory if the winning candidate’s margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. 
 
 The next step in the process is for the 67 county supervisors of election to recheck the total tally, and for the Nelson campaign to contact voters whose ballots were not counted due to a lack of ID or a matching address, for instance. The deadline is noon Saturday, or perhaps longer under certain circumstances, to determine whether the recount proceeds under law. 
 
 During his speech Tuesday Scott talked about the campaign and described campaigns in general as “divisive” and “tough.” 
 
 “And they’re really actually way too nasty,” he said. “But you know what? We’ve done this for over 200 years, and after these campaigns, we come together.” 
 
 The governor vowed to bring to Washington the same business-like approach he used as an outsider when he assumed office eight years ago as governor. Scott, a wealthy businessman who had not previously held political office, was elected governor in 2010 by beating Republican establishment candidate Bill McCollum and Democrat Alex Sink. 
 
 “The federal government is frustrating. It’s outdated. It’s wasteful. It’s inefficient,” Scott said. “All of us in state government have dealt with the federal government over the last eight years, and we can tell you story after story after story. Now, I’m just one individual, but there are a lot of other individuals in D.C. that want to do the same thing. And I’m going to work with them and we will change, like we did in Florida, the direction of Washington, D.C.” 
 
 Scott choked up after saying there were “a couple people looking down from heaven I want to recognize.” 
 
 “I had the most wonderful mom,” said Scott, who frequently speaks about growing up poor. “She never would believe that I’d be a governor or a U.S. senator.” 
 
 Scott also thanked Jeri Bustamante, a former aide who died in a boating accident this year and who was his Spanish coach. 
 
 AlertMe ||||| (CNN) Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson on Sunday conceded the Florida Senate race to Republican Gov. Rick Scott, ending his re-election bid after the completion of a statewide recount . 
 
 Scott announced the concession in a statement, saying, "I just spoke with Senator Bill Nelson, who graciously conceded, and I thanked him for his years of public service." 
 
 Nelson officially announced his concession in a taped statement on Sunday. 
 
 "I was not victorious in this race, but I still wish to strongly reaffirm the cause for which we fought, a public office is a public trust," he said. 
 
 Nelson added that he "by no measure feel(s) defeated" and reflected on his career in politics by saying he doesn't believe "anybody could have been as blessed." 
 
 The concession brings to conclusion a key Senate race that continued to be fought well after Election Day. 
 
 The Senate race -- along with the governor's and state's race for agriculture commissioner -- went to a machine recount a week ago, but the recount did not do nearly enough for Nelson and further formalized Scott's more than 12,000-vote lead. The contest still fell within the .25% standard for a manual recount of overvotes and undervotes, however. 
 
 Nelson conceded after the noon deadline for the manual recount, when all of Florida's 67 counties were required to submit their final vote totals to the secretary of state, meaning every vote deemed admissible by county canvassing boards and the courts had been officially counted. 
 
 The results of the recount showed Scott with a vote lead of 10,033 over incumbent Nelson. Before the completion of the manual recount, Scott had a lead of 12,603 votes. 
 
 Nelson's concession comes a day after Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum ended his campaign for governor by acknowledging that Republican Ron DeSantis had defeated him. The concession was a blow to Nelson, given the two top Democrats had figuratively stood together in calling for every legal vote cast in Florida to be counted. Gillum's bowing out was an acknowledgment that many Democrats in the state believe the fight is over. 
 
 Nelson acknowledged voting rights in his concession, an issue that was at the heart of both his and Gillum's messaging during the recount. 
 
 "We must end all forms of voter suppression, make it easier for Americans to vote and honor the idea that we are governed by the majority and not the minority," Nelson said. 
 
 Nelson's loss ends his nearly two-decade tenure in the Senate, where he most recently served as the ranking member on the Senate Commerce Committee and previously served as the chair of the Senate Aging Committee. 
 
 Nelson has been a fixture in Florida politics for more than four decades, serving as a member of the Florida House of Representatives for six years in the 1970s before vaulting to the US House of Representatives in 1979, where he served for 12 years. 
 
 Nelson faced an onslaught of spending in a race that likely topped $100 million just for ads on TV, according to data from CMAG. 
 
 And he was a top target for President Donald Trump, who considers Florida one of his home states because of Mar-a-Lago, the private club he has owned since 1985. Trump made a pair of last-minute trips to Florida to help Scott, rallying with the Republican governor and DeSantis in Fort Myers and then Pensacola during the final week of the campaign. 
 
 Scott, who is independently wealthy, raised an eye-popping $68 million this cycle, burying Nelson's $27 million. 
 
 But the Democratic outside money came in for Nelson after the primary, with Senate Majority PAC investing nearly $17 million, Priorities USA backing him with just over $8 million and Majority Forward spending another $5 million on Nelson's behalf. 
 
 Guns and the environment took an outsized role in this race. Both Scott and Nelson pointed fingers at each other over toxic algae blooms impacting the state's waterways, hoping to woo a group of single-issue environmental voters in the state. And guns have played a large role in the state after the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead. 
 
 But some of Nelson's most potent ads came in linking Scott to the President, attacks that put the governor on the defensive. 
 
 One Spanish-language ad for Nelson shows Scott shaking Trump's hand. Rick Scott and Donald Trump are "muy buenos amigos," the ad says -- very good friends. 
 
 The attacks seemingly worked, because Scott had to respond by distancing himself from the President. 
 
 "When I don't agree with what President Trump does or says, I've said it," Scott said in an ad. "My only commitment is with you."
– Republican Rick Scott declared himself the victor in Tuesday's Florida race for a US Senate seat, but it looks like people may have to bite their nails on this one a little longer. Politico reports that the team of his Democratic opponent, incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, sent out an early morning statement noting the vote tally was "not the result Senator Nelson and his campaign had worked so hard for." But the campaign also said that statement didn't mean Nelson was conceding, and later Wednesday morning came another statement from Nelson's camp: "We are proceeding to a recount." Per WESH, Scott's lead was 38,717 votes out of more than 8 million cast—which comes out to a margin that's less than one-half of 1%. In Florida, once the margin dips below that benchmark, a recount is automatically triggered. State officials will reportedly order the recount on Saturday. Scott, currently the governor of Florida, reacted via his spokesman, per Politico: "This race is over. It's a sad way for Bill Nelson to end his career. He is desperately trying to hold onto something that no longer exists."