Washington Post

James Hohmann

November 12, 2018

“Unofficial tallies show the Republican leading three-term Sen. Bill Nelson (D) by 12,562 votes out of more than 8 million ballots cast, a margin of 0.15 percent…

Scott notes that this would require five times more votes shifting than during any recount in American history. He won both his terms as governor in the nation’s biggest swing state by one percentage point. So he always assumed — win or lose — his 2018 bid would be this close.

…

‘We won the election,’ he said. ‘I’m looking forward to being up there. I’m looking forward to working hard. I’ve got a very specific agenda I’ve put out of what I want to accomplish. I know it’s going to be hard. I won’t make everyone happy. I did the same thing in Tallahassee. And it all worked out.’

…

The former CEO said his goal is to bring more of a ‘business attitude’ to the legislative branch. He said he will comb through the national budget and look for ways to propose efficiencies. He will also seek to find tangible ways to get a higher ‘return on investment’ for federal spending. And one of his top goals is to get more federal funding for Florida.

…

Scott joked that everything a candidate or campaign does in a close election can be described as decisive: ‘For the people that raise money, that was the most important thing. For the people that do the ads, that was most important. For the people that do grass roots, that was most important. When you win by 12,000 votes, they all were the most important. I just think it was everything we did!’”