November 7, 2000 2004 → 2,912,790 2,912,253 | 25 0 48.847% 48.838% | |
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The 2000 United States presidential election in Florida took place on November 7, 2000, as part of the nationwide presidential election. Florida, a swing state, had a major recount dispute that took center stage in the election. The outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election was not known for more than a month after balloting because of the extended process of counting and recounting Florida's presidential ballots. State results tallied on election night gave 246 electoral votes to Republican nominee Texas Governor George W. Bush and 255 to Democratic nominee Vice President Al Gore, with New Mexico (5), Oregon (7), and Florida (25) too close to call that evening. Gore won New Mexico and Oregon over the following few days, but the result in Florida would have been decisive however those two states had voted.
Contents
After an intense recount process and the United States Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, Bush won Florida’s electoral votes by a margin of only 537 votes out of almost six million cast and as a result became the president-elect. The process was extremely divisive, and led to calls for electoral reform in Florida.
Campaign
Initially Florida had been considered fertile territory for Republicans. It was governed by Jeb Bush, a staunch conservative and George W. Bush's brother. Nonetheless Republicans focused significant advertising resources in the large state, and later polls indicated that the state result was very much in play as late as September 2000. Some late momentum for Gore and his Jewish running mate Joe Lieberman may also have come from the significant Jewish population in southern Florida. Voters from reliably Democratic states in the Northeast had also been migrating to Florida since the 1950s. The state's electorate was becoming more diverse in general, with growing Asian and Hispanic immigrant populations.
Meanwhile, there was heavy backlash in the Cuban-American population against Democrats during the Elian Gonzalez dispute, during which Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton’s Attorney General, ordered six-year-old Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez to be returned to Cuba. The Democrats’ share of the Cuban-American vote dropped dramatically from 1996.
In late October, one poll found that Gore was leading Bush and third parties by 44–42–4 among registered voters and 46–42–4 among likely voters, but that poll had a margin of error of four percentage points, making the race too close to call.
Final certified results
The final official Florida count gave the victory to Bush by 537 votes, making it by percentage not only the tightest race of the campaign (New Mexico was decided by 363 votes but has a much smaller population, with those 363 votes representing a 0.061% margin whereas the 537 votes in Florida were just 0.009%), but the closest in any United States presidential election ever. Most of the reduction in the recount came from Miami-Dade county alone.
Florida was the second of the 50 states (after Louisiana) to report its official results to the federal government (in a Certificate of Ascertainment submitted to the National Archivist, the manner prescribed for presidential elections).
By congressional district
Bush won fifteen of twenty-three congressional districts.
Electors
Technically the voters of Florida cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. In 2000 Florida was allocated 25 electors because it had 23 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 25 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the most votes in the state is awarded all 25 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for President and Vice President. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 18, 2000 to cast their votes for President and Vice President. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney:
- Alred S. Austin
- Deborah L. Brooks
- Armando Codina
- Maria De La Milera
- Sandra M. Faulkner
- Thomas C. Feeney III
- Feliciano M. Foyo
- Jeanne Barber Godwin
- Dawn Guzzetta
- Cynthia M. Handley
- Adam W. Herbert
- Al Hoffman
- Glenda E. Hood
- Carole Jean Jordan
- Charles W. Kane
- Mel Martinez
- John M. McKay
- Dorsey C. Miller
- Berta J. Moralejo
- H. Gary Morse
- Marsha Nippert
- Darryl K. Sharpton
- Tom Slade
- John Thrasher
- Robert L. Woody