Romney Campaign Concedes Defeat In Florida

While it thankfully wasn’t necessary to a determination of the winner of the Electoral College this time around, as of today there still hasn’t been an official winner declared in Florida thanks largely to uncounted absentee ballots. Despite that, President Obama has a lead of roughly 50,000 votes and it was quite apparent as of this morning that Mitt Romney was not going to be overtake him. The only question remaining was whether, after the count was done, the gap between the two candidates would be small enough to trigger an automatic recount under state law. With this announcement from the Romney campaign, it would appear that this won’t be happening regardless of the outcome:

Though votes are still being tallied, President Obama is all but assured a victory in Florida because the lion’s share of the outstanding ballots come from Democratic-heavy counties.

Obama leads Republican Mitt Romney by 55,825 votes — or 49.9 percent to 49.24 — but there just aren’t enough votes from Republican areas to allow the challenger to catch up.

Romney’s Florida campaign has acknowledged he lost in Florida as well. Romney already conceded the national race after he lost the other battleground states.

“The numbers in Florida show this was winnable,” Brett Doster, Florida advisor for Romney, said in a statement to The Miami Herald.  “We thought based on our polling and range of organization that we had done what we needed to win. Obviously, we didn’t, and for that I, and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won’t happen again.”

With Florida’s 29 Electoral College Votes, Obama will have 332 votes to Romney’s 206

This also means that I ended up one state off in my prediction. I forecast Florida to go to Romney based largely on the RCP average that gave him a slight lead in the state. Oh well. Still, 49 out of 50 isn’t too bad.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, US Politics, , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. ernieyeball says:

    Brett Doster, Florida advisor for Romney:
    “…I, and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won’t happen again.”

    Will anyone hire him again for such a task?

  2. SKI says:

    You must have succumbed to the liberal-biased reality in making your predictions.

  3. Anderson says:

    “Will anyone hire him again for such a task?”

    They usually do.

  4. michael reynolds says:

    I await the analyzed results of the exit polls from Florida. I’d love to find out that Republican voters suppression efforts actually brought more African-Americans and Latinos to the polls.

  5. Jeremy says:

    Oh well. Still, 49 out of 50 isn’t too bad.

    UNSKEW THOSE POLLS!

  6. ernieyeball says:

    Apparently the Pizza Man will be looking for a back slapper…er…pollster.
    Both these guys have the same firm grip on reality!!!

    https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/herman-cain-time-for-a-third-party/

  7. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Florida ’12 is an example of how and why the Democrats are the varsity team when it comes to politics whereas the GOP is the junior varsity squad.

    Republicans have won the past four gubernatorial elections in Fla. They control a large majority of the state’s U.S. House delegation. No less an evil genius idiot than George W. Bush (gulp) won the state less than a decade ago by a margin of 381,000 net ballots.

    Romney spent enormous sums of time, effort and money in the state. Well over 100,000 Floridians who voted for Obama in ’08 didn’t vote for him in ’12.

    Yet Obama still won the state!

    Think about that. That’s pure, unadulterated political muscle and cojones. We can’t admire the Chicago-style tactics, but we do greatly admire the raw political ruthlessness of it all.

  8. Anderson says:

    “Chicago tactics” apparently means “inspiring people to stand in line for hours and vote.”

    I had always imagined something more nefarious.

  9. bk says:

    We can’t admire the Chicago-style tactics

    You mean like making sure that as many people as possible get to exercise their right to vote, despite concerted efforts to the contrary?

  10. bk says:

    I will say, though, that I really dislike Chicago-style pizza.

  11. PJ says:

    @Anderson:

    “Chicago tactics” apparently means “inspiring people to stand in line for hours and vote.”

    I had always imagined something more nefarious.

    The Black Panthers weren’t at polling places to intimidate Republican voters, they were there to make sure Democratic voters didn’t leave the lines.

    Voter intimidation, but not quite the kind that we all thought.

  12. bk says:

    @PJ:

    The Black Panthers weren’t at polling places to intimidate Republican voters, they were there to make sure Democratic voters didn’t leave the lines

    In Florida? You have any source for that, or is that just an offhand remark?

  13. Liberty60 says:

    @bk: Like I said once before, I’m sure that somewhere in Florida, a black guy wore a leather jacket and beret.

    I know there was that guy in Philly, who sure as all heck terrified me, and i am all the way out here in California.

  14. MM says:

    @ernieyeball: If that task will be to suppress votes, yes.

  15. MM says:

    @PJ: You have proof of this besides the guy who *gasp* opened a door for two old ladies, yes?

  16. Nikki says:

    @michael reynolds: This. Please let it be true nationwide as well.

  17. Nikki says:

    @Tsar Nicholas: Yeah. Democratic GOTV’s a bitch, ain’t it?

  18. Fiona says:

    Ever so happy that Florida turned out to be irrelevant this year.

  19. mack k says:

    @Fiona:

    The people of Florida who stood on line for hours, and had to deal with unprecedented voter suppression are certainly NOT “happy that Florida was irrelevant this time.” Gov Scott is an abject failure, if not guilty of federal election laws, and needs to be replaced.

  20. Franklin says:

    @bk: I’m pretty sure that was a joke.

    But the fact that Florida went for Obama despite having 3-hour lines in Democratic strongholds suggests that Romney wasn’t really even close to being truly competitive there. Unless the ORCA clusterfvck really did have an impact.