Florida Democratic candidate for governor Andrew Gillum officially conceded on Saturday to Republican Ron DeSantis, two days after a machine recount ended. The machine recount had DeSantis still leading by over 3,000 votes.

The Tallahassee mayor congratulated DeSantis on becoming the next governor. In a Facebook video, Gillum didn't say what his plans for the future are, but told his supporters to stay tuned.

DeSantis responded on Twitter, saying "This was a hard-fought campaign. Now it's time to bring Florida together."

Gillum conceded on Election Night, but retracted it after the margin of votes between him and DeSantis shrunk within the level of a legally required recount.

Gillum won a surprise victory in the Democratic primary in August after running to the left of his opponents. He spent months as third in the polls and was outspent by his opponents. DeSantis, meanwhile, had been embraced by President Trump.

Mr. Trump earlier Saturday congratulated DeSantis on his victory, and called Gillum a "strong Democrat warrior long into the future - a force to reckon with!"

Mr. Trump had struck a different tone during the campaign, saying at a rally shortly before Election Day that Gillum is "a radical socialist ... who will not do good things for Florida."

Former President Obama visited Florida to campaign for Gillum, giving a speech in Miami where he said the "character of the county" was on the line in the midterm elections.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.</s>Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum on Saturday conceded in the Florida gubernatorial election to Ron DeSantis.

Gillum, the Democratic candidate, made the statement in a post on Twitter that comes two days after the machine recount results showed Republican DeSantis maintained his lead and the margin between both candidates was not enough to trigger a manual recount.

"I want to congratulate @RonDeSantisFL on becoming the next Governor of the great state of Florida. My wife R. Jai and I could not be prouder of the way we ran this race. We could not be more thankful to my running mate, @ChrisKingFL and his wife Kristen," Gillum wrote.

"Most importantly, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for being part of this campaign. I wouldn’t be here without the support that was shown by millions of Floridians. I encourage y’all to keep fighting for what we believe in," Gillum added.

During a Facebook live video, Gillum said that he will remain politically active and that his followers should "stay tuned."

DeSantis replied to Gillum's Twitter post: "This was a hard-fought campaign. Now it’s time to bring Florida together.

President Donald Trump earlier on Saturday congratulated Gillum on the hard-fought campaign in Florida.

"Congratulations to Andrew Gillum on having run a really tough and competitive race for Governor of the Great State of Florida. He will be a strong Democrat warrior long into the future - a force to reckon with!" Trump wrote on Twitter.

A manual recount was ordered in Florida's election for the U.S. Senate race between outgoing Florida Gov. Rick Scott and incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, as well as the Florida commissioner of agriculture race between Democrat Nikki Fried and Republican Matt Caldwell.</s>Andrew Gillum, the Democratic mayor of Tallahassee running for governor of Florida, on Saturday conceded the contentious race to his Republican opponent Ron DeSantis.

Gillum appeared in a Facebook video with his wife, R. Jai Gillum, to acknowledge his loss ― by a margin of just 0.41 percentage points.

“We said that we would fight until the last vote is counted. We wanted to make sure that every single vote ― including those that were overvotes, undervotes ― as long as those were legally cast, we wanted those votes to be counted,” Gillum began.

“And now that we are rounding that process out, R. Jai and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis for becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida,” he said.

Gillum posted the video 11 days after the 2018 midterm elections, when tight margins between the two candidates triggered an automatic machine recount. Although the candidate conceded to DeSantis after the Nov. 6 election, he rescinded his words as it became apparent that a recount was necessary.

The state’s similarly close U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott remains officially undecided. A second, manual recount is underway in that contest, because the margin following the initial machine recount was still too narrow by state standards.

“Nobody wanted to be governor more than me, but this was not just about an election cycle,” Gillum said in the video posted Saturday. “This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows for the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government, in our state and in our communities.”

“More than 4 million of you decided that you wanted a different direction for the state of Florida,” he said, adding that he and his wife remain committed to the campaign’s values.</s>Andrew Gillum ended his bid to become the first African-American governor of Florida on Saturday, conceding the race to his Republican rival, former Rep. Ron DeSantis.

"R.J. and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida," Gillum said in a Facebook video with his wife at his side. "This has been the journey of our lives."

The contest was one of the most closely watched in the country. Gillum had initially conceded on election night and the AP called the race for DeSantis. But as more absentee ballots were counted in the following days and the margin between the two men narrowed to within the 0.5 percentage point necessary to trigger a mandatory recount under Florida law, the AP withdrew its projection and Gillum also withdrew his concession.

A contentious recount in both the gubernatorial and Senate contests followed, but DeSantis never relinquished his lead over Gillum. Thursday at 3 p.m. ET was the deadline for Florida counties to complete machine recounts, which had DeSantis leading by a margin greater than the 0.25 percentage point which would have triggered a manual recount.

The race between DeSantis, who resigned from Congress earlier this year to run, and Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, was an extraordinarily bitter one. Gillum was the surprise winner of the Democratic primary, embracing a progressive platform for his campaign as he vied to become the state's first African-American governor.

But shortly after the general election campaign started, charges of racism began to fly. The day after the primary, DeSantis said that Floridians shouldn't "monkey this up" by electing Gillum — a phrase which many saw as a racist dog whistle. DeSantis responded that the charges of racism were "absurd," but there were other more overtly racist robocalls from outside groups which also followed. Gillum, meanwhile, faced questions about an FBI corruption investigation into Tallahassee's city government.

DeSantis won his primary by running as a staunch ally of President Trump, who returned in the final days of the midterm season to help boost the former congressman. Gillum had plenty of outside help too, with former President Barack Obama and others stumping on his behalf.

Keeping Florida in the GOP column is a highlight for Republicans in an otherwise relatively dismal midterm election cycle. While Republicans held onto the Senate and added at least one seat, Democrats flipped the House of Representative, winning at least 35 seats. Democrats made major gains in the governor's contests too, adding seven seats to their total nationwide.

But Florida was a major prize for both parties — it's perhaps the most important state in the 2020 presidential contest. Trump won it in 2016, but Obama carried it twice. And it's an important state in redistricting that will follow the 2020 census and subsequent congressional reapportionment as well.</s>Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded defeat to Republican Ron DeSantis in the Florida Governors race on election night; then the national democrats got hold of him, and Gillum withdrew his concession. Today, following a recount, he re-conceded the race.

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – Democrat Andrew Gillum … conceded on Saturday, after a recount showed he had no way of catching his Republican rival Ron DeSantis, an ally of President Donald Trump.

Gillum, the 39-year-old liberal mayor of Tallahassee, had initially conceded the race on the night of the Nov. 6 election to DeSantis, a conservative former congressman. But Gillum later withdrew that concession when the results showed the two were close enough to trigger an automatic recount.</s>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Democrat Andrew Gillum says he is ending his hard-fought race for Florida governor and has congratulated Republican Ron DeSantis.

Gillum posted a live video on Facebook on Saturday afternoon in which he congratulated DeSantis. Gillum had conceded to DeSantis on election night, but retracted it after the margin between the two candidates narrowed. The race went to a legally required recount, but after an initial machine recount DeSantis still led Gillum by more than 30,000 votes.

Gillum, who is Tallahassee's mayor, isn't saying what he plans to do next.

"Stay tuned," he said in his brief remarks. Nonetheless Gillum says he will remain politically active, adding "the fight for Florida continues."

Gillum's announcement came hours after President Donald Trump said on Twitter that Gillum will be a "strong Democrat warrior" and a "force to reckon with."

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Andrew Gillum, who tried to energize Florida’s young and minority voters through a Democratic coalition seeking to end two decades of Republican control of the governor’s office, ended his hard-fought campaign Saturday as the state’s first black nominee for the post.

Gillum, whose refrain had been “bring it home” as he recounted stories of growing up poor in the state, concluded his campaign with a Facebook video he recorded alongside his wife in a park.

In his four-minute plus video, Gillum congratulated Republican Ron DeSantis and also vowed to remain politically active even though his term as mayor of the Florida capital of Tallahassee ends next week. Of his future plans, Gillum said: “stay tuned.”

Gillum, just 39 years old, earned national attention and financial backing from well-known liberal billionaires with his first bid for statewide office. He ran on a liberal platform that included expanding Medicaid and raising taxes to spend more on education even though both ideas would have been hard to pass through the GOP-controlled Legislature.

His final act as a candidate was less confrontational than that of another prominent African-American candidate in this year’s midterm elections: Stacy Abrams in neighboring Georgia ended her campaign for governor on Friday, ceding to a Republican with an unapologetically indignant tone establishing herself as a leading voting rights advocate.

“This has been the journey of our lives,” said Gillum, appearing in the video with his wife, R. Jai Gillum. “Although nobody wanted to be governor more than me that this was not just about an election cycle. This was about creating the type of change in this state that really allows for the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government, in our state, and in our communities. We know that this fight continues.”

Gillum’s concession came hours before Florida’s counties must turn in their official results at noon Sunday after tense days of recounting ballots in both the gubernatorial and a U.S. Senate contest - two nationally watched midterm elections that have keep the presidential swing state on edge since Election Day.

Gillum’s brief remarks came hours after President Donald Trump, who at one point in the campaign had sharply criticized Gillum, praised him for running a tough race.

“He will be a strong Democrat warrior long into the future - a force to reckon with!” said Trump in a Twitter post.

Gillum had initially conceded to DeSantis on election night, but he retracted it as the razor-thin margin between the two candidates narrowed. But he still trailed DeSantis by more than 30,000 votes following a legally required machine recount. Counties are wrapping up a hand recount this weekend and must submit their official results by noon Sunday.

Gillum’s concession assures Florida Republicans will retain their grasp on the governor’s office since Jeb Bush’s term starting in 1999.

DeSantis, 40, was considered an underdog before Trump tweeted his support for DeSantis in December, a month before DeSantis even entered the race. Trump campaigned to help push DeSantis to a primary victory in August and visited Florida two more times to help the Republican in the final days of the election.

DeSantis’s campaign did not respond to Gillum’s remarks, pointing instead to a statement the former congressman put out two days ago.

“Campaigns are meant to be vigorously debated contests of ideas and competing visions for the future,” DeSantis said. “The campaign for governor achieved this objective as evidenced by historic voter turnout from people of all parties across our state. But campaigns of ideas must give way to governing and bringing people together to secure Florida’s future. With the campaign now over, that’s where all of my focus will be.”

DeSantis stumbled out of the gate after winning the Aug. 28 primary, telling Fox News that voters shouldn’t “monkey this up” by electing Gillum.

Despite implications that DeSantis is racially insensitive - an idea he angrily disputed during a debate - he is poised to officially win the state that Trump carried in 2016. He has promised to keep intact many of the same policies on education and health care that have been in place by previous Republican governors.

DeSantis ran as a political outsider despite serving three terms in Congress and running for the U.S. Senate in 2016 before dropping out of the race when Republican Sen. Marco Rubio decided to run for re-election.

DeSantis is a former Navy officer who graduated from Yale University before getting his law degree at Harvard University.

He gained name recognition during the primary with more than 100 appearances on Fox News, often to defend the president.

DeSantis ran a largely negative campaign, calling Gillum a socialist and saying he oversaw one of the most corrupt and crime-ridden cities in the state. Trump joined in on the criticism, tweeting similar messages. The corruption allegation stemmed from a continuing FBI investigation into City Hall that Gillum has said he is not a target of and is cooperating with; the charge that Tallahassee had the state’s highest crime rate was false.

Gillum portrayed DeSantis as racially divisive, repeatedly pointing out his “monkey this up” comment.

“I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist,” Gillum said previously.

Gillum’s announcement came as most Florida counties were winding down their hand recount in the state’s contentious U.S. Senate race. The smattering of results publicly posted Saturday showed that Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson was only gaining a few hundred votes in his bitter contest with outgoing Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican.

State officials ordered a manual recount earlier in the week after a legally required machine recount showed that Scott led incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson by about 12,600 votes. More than 8 million voters cast ballots in the race.

Nelson and Democrats filed several lawsuits following the close election, challenging everything from the state’s signature mismatch law to deadlines for mail-in ballots.

If the 76-year-old Nelson loses, it would likely spell an end to a lengthy political career that stretches back four decades. Nelson was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2000. A win for Scott would mark his third victory since the multimillionaire businessman launched his political career in 2010. In each race, Scott has barely edged his Democratic opponent.

State law requires a machine recount in races where the margin is 0.5 percentage points or less. Once that recount was complete, if the differences in any of the races are 0.25 percentage points or less, a hand recount is ordered. Local canvassing boards only review ballots where a vote was not recorded by voting machines.</s>In a tight race for Florida Governor, Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded Saturday to GOP Ron DeSantis. The announcement from Gillum arrived via a Facebook Live post, alongside his wife.

Gillum said he wanted “to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida.” Gillum had conceded to DeSantis on election night but retracted his concession after the margin between the two narrowed. The race legally required a recount. After an initial machine recount, DeSantis still led Gillum by more than 30,000 votes. In his Facebook post, Gillum said, “This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows for the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government and our state and our communities. We know that this fight continues in spite of the outcome of this election, R.J. and I are committing ourselves alongside each and every one of you.”</s>Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded to Republican Ron DeSantis on Saturday, ending a high-profile and highly contentious race to become governor of Florida.

Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, announced his decision in a Facebook Live post.

Gillum said he wanted “to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida.”

“I want to congratulate @RonDeSantisFL on becoming the next Governor of the great state of Florida. My wife R. Jai and I could not be prouder of the way we ran this race,” Gillum tweeted. “Most importantly, from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you for being part of this campaign. I wouldn’t be here without the support that was shown by millions of Floridians. I encourage y’all to keep fighting for what we believe in.”

When the polls closed Nov. 6, Gillum conceded the race, but then withdrew that concession as the gap between the candidates closed.

Gillum’s concession Saturday followed a machine recount that showed DeSantis with a lead of more than 30,000 votes, Fox News reported.

The campaign overflowed with charges of racism against DeSantis, who is white, from Gillum, who is black. In the aftermath of the election. Gillum’s campaign accused Florida of suppressing votes that would have been cast on Gillum’s behalf.

However, no facts were found to substantiate those suppression charges.

In his concession, Gillum framed the election as one battle in a larger war.

“This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows for the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government and our state and our communities,” he said. “We know that this fight continues in spite of the outcome of this election, R Jai and I are committing ourselves alongside each and every one of you.”

“Stay tuned,” he said. “There will be more to come.”

RELATED: Broward County Has To Halt Recounts After Counting the Wrong Ballots

President Donnald Trump, who strongly supported DeSantis, agreed in a tweet that the political world had not seen the last of Gillum.

“Congratulations to Andrew Gillum on having run a really tough and competitive race for Governor of the Great State of Florida. He will be a strong Democrat warrior long into the future – a force to reckon with!” Trump tweeted.

“This was a hard-fought campaign. Now it’s time to bring Florida together,” he tweeted.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>Democrat Andrew Gillum conceded, again, to Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis in the Florida governor’s race, wrapping up one of the state’s two fiercely contested statewide races and making an ally of President Trump the top official in the key swing state.

But the Tallahassee mayor, who would have been the state’s first black governor, vowed that “this fight continues” in a Facebook post in which he stood in front of a lake along with his wife, R. Jai.

“R. Jai and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the governor of the great state of Florida,” Gillum said. “I’ll tell you, this has been the journey of our lives.”

Gillum, who upset a more established candidate to win the Democratic gubernatorial primary and is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party, signaled that he was not done with politics.

“We wanted to make sure that every single vote … as long as it was a legally cast vote, we wanted those votes to be counted,” Gillum said. “We also want you to know that even though this election may be beyond us … this was not just about an election cycle. This was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows the voices of everyday people to show up again in our government.”

Gillum had originally conceded on election night, but rescinded the concession in order for a machine recount to occur for both the governor’s contest and the hotly contested Senate race pitting incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, D, against Gov. Rick Scott, R. That race was still not resolved on Saturday as key counties continued counting ballots by hand after a machine recount failed to sufficiently widen the margin.

The machine recount ended on Thursday and did confirm that DeSantis had won the race; Florida election officials had planned to certify DeSantis’ victory on Tuesday. But Gillum had not confirmed that he would accept the defeat until Saturday afternoon.

After the machine recount. DeSantis said in a statement that he was focused on his transition to governor and invited Gillum to meet with him.

“Campaigns of ideas must give way to governing and bringing people together to secure Florida’s future. With the campaign now over, that’s where all of my focus will be,” DeSantis said.

The manual recount continued Saturday in the Senate contest in which Scott led narrowly. The machine and then manual recount was automatically triggered because the original margin between Scott and Nelson was within the 0.25 percent legal threshold. That recount is required to finish up by noon on Sunday and has spotlighted the the chaotic election system in Florida and hearkened back to visions of the 2000 presidential recount in the Sunshine State.

Going into the recount, Nelson trailed Scott by more than 12,000 votes, and his campaign had hoped a re-examination of ballots – particularly in heavily Democratic Broward County – would help him close the gap. Initial results from a manual recount did not appear to be anywhere near enough for Nelson to overcome the deficit, however.

DeSantis’ ascent to the governorship represents a major victory for President Trump, who handpicked the congressman when he was an underdog in the Republican primary and headlined two rallies in Florida in the campaign’s closing days.

DeSantis aligned himself closely with the president, airing a TV ad in which he was seen reading “The Art of the Deal” to one of his children, and as governor would be in a strong position to help Trump’s re-election campaign in the country’s biggest swing state.

Gillum ran on progressive policies such as “Medicare for all” and a $15 hourly minimum wage and beat back what some saw as racist attacks on his candidacy. After winning the primary, DeSantis said Florida voters shouldn’t “monkey this up” by voting for Gillum; and Trump derided the Democrat as a “thief.”

One Gillum supporter called the Democrat “the way of the future.”

“He handled this with such grace and class,” said Guy Wheeler, 62, a therapist in Fort Lauderdale. “He could have stooped low, but I think even his adversaries, including the president, respect how he handled it.”

He said the Tallahassee mayor addressed the subject of race in the contest in a manner that will help move the conversation forward.

“He illuminated the underbelly, and he brought attention to what we all know is out here,” Wheeler said. “I don’t want to compare him to (former President Barack) Obama, but he’s on the forefront of the movement that’s going to pull this country together.”
Florida Democratic candidate Andrew Gillum concedes defeat to Republican candidate Ron DeSantis.