November 4, 2014 (2014-November-04) 2018 → 48.1% 47.1% | 2,865,343 2,801,198 | |
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The 2014 Florida gubernatorial election took place on November 4, 2014, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Florida, concurrently with elections to the United States Senate in other states, elections to the United States House of Representatives, and various state and local elections.
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Incumbent Republican Governor Rick Scott ran for and won re-election to a second term in office. The Democratic nominee was former Governor Charlie Crist. Crist was elected Governor as a Republican in 2006 but did not run for re-election in 2010, instead running for the U.S. Senate. In April 2010 and while still in office, he left the Republican Party to run as an Independent instead. He was defeated in the general election by Republican nominee Marco Rubio. In December 2012, Crist joined the Democratic Party. With the loss, Crist became the first person in Florida history to lose statewide elections as a Democrat, Republican, and Independent. Libertarian nominee Adrian Wyllie and several candidates with no party affiliation also ran.
The consensus among The Cook Political Report, Governing, The Rothenberg Political Report, Sabato's Crystal Ball, Daily Kos Elections, and others was that the contest was a tossup.
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Write-in candidates
Candidates
The following candidates will appear on the ballot for the general election:
Campaigning
As of early June 2014, Scott had spent almost $13m since March on television adverts attacking Charlie Crist, who then appeared the likely Democratic nominee. Although the ads resulted in a tightening of the race, this came about by decreasing Crist's favorability ratings. By contrast, Scott's favorability ratings did not increase. By late September, Scott's television ad spending had exceeded $35m and in mid-October it reached $56.5 million, compared to $26.5 million by Crist. On October 22 it was reported that Scott's total spending had exceeded $83 million and he announced that, having previously said he would not do so, he would be investing his own money into the campaign, speculated to be as much as $22 million.
Crist hoped to draw strong support from Florida's more than 1.6 million registered black voters, an effort that was challenging with regards to his previous political career as a Republican. A poll conducted in September 2014 by Quinnipiac University revealed his support among black voters was at 72 percent against Scott, which was below the 90 percent analysts believed he needed to win.
Scott and Crist met in a debate on October 15, held by the Florida Press Association at Broward College. The debate required candidates to receive at least 15% support in major polls to be included. This was allegedly increased from 10% after Wyllie met the initial criteria, but the Miami Herald reported that the threshold had been 15% since 2013. The decision has been criticised as "suppressing choice" and the Wyllie campaign has filed a lawsuit to be included in the debate. U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn dismissed the lawsuit. At this debate, Scott refused to take the stage for seven minutes because Crist had a small electric fan under his lectern. The incident was dubbed "fangate" by media sources such as Politico.