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Andrew Gillum, Democratic mayor of Tallahassee, Florida governor candidate, conceded on Saturday the controversial race to his Republican opponent, Ron DeSantis.
Gillum appeared in a Facebook video with his wife, R. Jai Gillum, to acknowledge his loss – with a margin of just 0.41 percentage point.
"We said we would fight until the last vote was counted. We wanted to make sure that every vote – including those that were over-votes, sub-votes – as long as they were legally cast, we wanted those votes to be counted, "began Gillum.
"And now that we have completed this process, R. Jai and I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Mr. DeSantis on becoming the next governor of the great state of Florida," he said.
Gillum released the video 11 days after the mid-term elections of 2018, when tight margins between the two candidates triggered an automatic recount. Although the candidate conceded to DeSantis after the November 6 election, he canceled his words because it became apparent that a recount was necessary.
The race in the US Senate between Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Governor Rick Scott remains officially indecisive. A second manual recount is underway in this competition because the margin following the initial recount of the machine was still too narrow by state standards.
"Nobody wanted to be a governor more than me, but it was not just an election cycle," Gillum said in the video released Saturday. "It was about creating the kind of change in this state that really allows people to have their voices heard in our government, our state, and our communities."
"More than 4 million of you have decided that you want a different direction for the state of Florida," he said, adding that he and his wife remained committed to the values of the campaign.
In a tweet following Gillum's concession, DeSantis wrote: "Now is the time to reunite Florida."
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