Too Close To Call
A mere 12 votes separated the leading contenders, Jamaican-American Dale Holness and Haitian-American Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, in yesterday’s Florida Democratic primary elections. Both candidates are fighting to replace Alcee Hastings who died in April from cancer, in Florida’s 20th Congressional district.
At the end of the initial counting, Florida Elections Board reported, unofficially, that Holness had 11,644 votes to Cherfilus-McCormick 11, 632. In Palm Beach County, Cherfilus-McCormick did very well with 30 percent of the votes, while Holness managed to get only 7.9 percent. But Holness did better, as was expected in Broward County, taking 29.37 percent of the votes to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 21.52 percent. Most had expected the Jamaican to do much better, in an area with the larger Jamaican population of the two counties.
The Florida primary had a very low voter turn-out of just over 49,000, which was predicted by election watchers. Sixteen percent of eligible voters casted votes in Broward and about 17 percent in Palm Beach. There were nine other Democratic candidates in the race. Barbara Sharief (8,671), Perry Thurston (7,272), and Bobby Dubose (3,457) rounded off the top five.
Florida Democratic Primary Elections Awaits Recount
The result is certain to cause a recount, as the margin of victory is within the 0.5% threshold. If at the end of the machine recount the victory margin is less than 0.25% then a hand recount could be ordered to determine the winner.
This was Cherfilus-McCormick’s third attempt at winning the seat. She wrestled with Alcee Hastings on two previous occasions, losing by 34,928 votes in August last year and 33,931 in 2018. This time she used her massive financial chest of $3.8 million; $3.7 million of which she loaned her campaign, to dramatically narrowed the margin. It allowed her to spend heavily on television and digital advertising, among other promotional avenues. This very narrow margin could end up giving her the keys to an office on Capitol Hill, based on recounts. The district is heavily Democratic, with 289,637 registered voters to the Republican’s 59, 772.
Meanwhile Holness raised $600,000 from donors and used $40,000 of his own money in his campaign. Most of his money was spent knocking on doors, mailers, street and yard signs, and newspaper advertising which his campaign projected would give him over 40,000 votes. His camp is confident however that the rest of the votes to be counted in Broward, will make him a clear winner.
When it was realized that a winner was not going to be declared last night, both frontrunners expressed thanks to their teams and indicated that there was going to be a recount. Cherfilus-McCormick was first to acknowledge the stalemate and address the indecisive result with a video post on her Instagram account from her headquarters. “Thank you guys for being here and the support team. We are going to a recount… but I did want to thank everybody who has worked so hard on the campaign,” she said. At the time of her announcement, she was leading by 31 votes. In another Instagram post supporters of Cherfilus-McCormick could be seen congratulating her for winning.
At about 11:20 pm Holness addressed his supporters at his headquarters in Plantation. Speaking right after Bob Marley’s “One Love” song, he was appreciative of his supporters for “investing in this mission to create prosperity for all.” Holness said: “America is certainly a great country and tonight demonstrates a part of its greatness. For an immigrant and the child of an immigrant to be in a close contest to represent the people of the 2oth district in the US Congress, certainly demonstrates the great magnanimity of this country.
The Jamaican-American went on to say that: “Though we are a great nation there is still a lot we can do to create a better place for everyone. Too many of our citizens are being left behind and left out and that is why my them is prosperity for all.” He went on to talk about some the issues on his platform agenda before thanking his team, contributors, and supporters. He also thanked the other ten candidates for “offering themselves in service to our community,” saying that it takes “a lot of sacrifices to give up time, talent in order to put yourself up.”
Addressing the results, Holness said that: “As of now, the ballots have not finally been counted. My understanding is [that] close to a thousand ballots have not been counted in Broward County.” He said once the results are in he would make a final statement. Up to the time of his speech, the Jamaican was still behind by 31 votes. The numbers changed in his favor by this morning however, giving him the very slim lead.
Senior Director of Communications and Policy at Broward County office of Elections, Consuelo Kelley, confirmed to Caribbean National Weekly that they “are still processing votes.” She said that “the overseas votes are still not counted and there is a ten-day period for that to happen.”
Over the years Broward County has become the center of attraction for election watchers, as the county has been plagued with result glitches. The latest saga took place in 2018 when there was a long wait for results in the elections for governor and U.S. Senate races. Dr. Brenda Snipes who was the supervisor of elections ultimately tendered her resignation.
Whatever happens this time, the final results and the eventual winner of the Florida Democratic Primary are certain to be delayed, especially with the closeness of the numbers and the pending recount.
