This browser does not support the Video element.
FOX 13: President Trump wins Florida
FOX 13 political editor Craig Patrick says President Donald Trump wins the state of Florida. Here's why.
TAMPA, Fla. - President Donald Trump has won Florida and its 29 electoral college votes with a wider margin than his 2016 victory.
With 98 percent of the vote counted, the president had 51.28 percent of the state’s vote to Joe Biden’s 47.82 percent. That’s a difference of 381,672 votes.
The largest group of uncounted votes is in Osceola County, where an internet outage was delaying reporting. The county leans Democratic, but it did not appear that the remaining uncounted votes would allow Biden to make up the difference.
Trump’s lead over Biden in Florida appeared to top the president’s 1.2 percentage-point victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I am proud to announce that Florida has once again delivered for President Donald J. Trump and that Florida Republicans will retain control of both chambers of the Florida Legislature,” DeSantis, a close ally of the president, said in a prepared statement.
Star 2016 pollster again predicts Trump will take Florida, this time by wider margin
In 2016, FOX 13 pollster Matt Towery ranked among the most accurate in the nation through the primaries and the general election. On our newscast, he predicted Donald Trump would win the state of Florida five days before Election Day in 2016.
An early look at the votes suggests that Trump performed better than expected among the Cuban communities in South Florida.
Trump made numerous visits to Miami-Dade County, as he wooed Cuban-American voters. The president’s campaign made a “real-deal commitment” targeting Hispanic voters throughout the state, Trump 2020 senior advisor Jason Miller told reporters in a phone call before the polls closed Tuesday evening.
“What we’re seeing with the Cuban-American community, the Colombian-American community, the Venezuelan-American community in South Florida is nothing short of spectacular,” Miller said. “They’re excited to vote for President Trump.”
Trump’s efforts in Miami-Dade County appeared to pay off, with lackluster Democratic turnout there, apparently costing Biden a Sunshine State loss.
Florida’s 29 electoral college votes reduces the pressure on Trump to win some of the other swing states that were still in play as of 10 p.m.
Information from the News Service of Florida was used in this report.