Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) speak to reporters about the election recount happening in Florida at the U.S Capitol on Nov. 13. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Congress Schumer sees Nelson victory after recount

Sen. Bill Nelson is down by more than 12,000 votes as his re-election campaign heads into a recount. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer says if all the votes are counted, Nelson is the favorite to win re-election.

In an unusual joint press conference Tuesday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Nelson (D-Fla.) laid into Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) for making claims of “voter fraud” and charging that Democrats want to “steal” the election from him. And Schumer was characteristically sunny about Nelson’s prospects despite being behind by a significant margin before the recount.


“Republicans know that if this recount is conducted fairly and thoroughly that Sen. Nelson has an excellent chance of being reelected,” Schumer said. “If this is done fair and square, we believe Sen. Nelson has an excellent chance, a much greater than half chance of being reelected.”

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Schumer has some reason to be optimistic, given that Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) was just declared the victor in a tight Senate race despite being behind on election night. Still, Nelson’s gap will be difficult to make up pending some larger error in voting tabulations.

The two senators took no questions, but a Democratic official said that they believe a number of ballots discarded by machines in Democratic areas will help boost Nelson in a hand recount.

But Schumer said the state needs to blow past the Sunday deadline for a recount.

“Supervisors of the elections should have all the time they need to count Floridians’ ballots to make sure that the candidate with the most votes is actually seated in January. Even if the vote count has to go beyond Sunday,” Schumer said. He and Nelson also called on Scott to recuse himself from the recount process.

“It’s become obvious that Mr. Scott cannot oversee the process in a fair and impartial way and he should remove himself from the recount process,” Nelson said.

The stakes of Nelson’s race are enormously high for Schumer, who is hoping to compete for the Senate majority in 2020 and needs as many seats as he can going into it. With Sinema’s win, the GOP majority will be no larger than 53 senators, and if Nelson pulls it out it will end up at 52 — right where it started at the beginning of 2017. That would give Schumer a fighting chance at taking back the majority in the upcoming election cycle.

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Republicans say Schumer is projecting confidence when he shouldn’t be and are calling on Nelson to concede.

“Despite Schumer’s nonsensical claim that victory is right around the corner, it’s well past time for Nelson to hang it up and let Floridians move on from his failed reelection campaign,” said Camille Gallo, a spokeswoman for the Senate GOP campaign arm.