Election results in Florida are final, except for one congressional race and one state House contest that will undergo machine recounts this week. In Florida’s 27th Congressional District, a recount will begin Monday at 10 a.m. in the race between Republican U.S. Rep. Maria Salazar and Democratic candidate Eliot Rodriguez. Salazar leads Rodriguez by 1,090 votes, or 0.44%, within the 0.5% margin that automatically triggers a machine recount. Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia, a Republican, will oversee the recount as one of three members of the Miami-Dade County canvassing board. The Rodriguez campaign has filed a federal lawsuit requesting Garcia recuse herself, citing conflicts including her son-in-law, Robert Fernandez, representing Salazar in the recount. Garcia has stated she will not recuse herself. A hearing related to the legal challenge occurred earlier Monday, but a federal judge denied the motion to relieve Garcia, as reported by NBC 6 South Florida.
A state House race also requires a recount. The contest for the House District 33 seat in Brevard County will take place Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Brevard County Election Support Center in Melbourne. Democratic challenger Daniel R. McDow holds a lead of 289 votes over Republican incumbent Monique Miller, with McDow at 36,430 votes and Miller at 36,141 votes, a difference of 0.4%, or 50.2%-49.8%. If the machine recounts in either case result in a margin of 0.25% or less, a manual recount would be ordered.
Several other congressional elections in Florida last week were extremely close, but their margins were outside the 0.5% required for a machine recount. In Florida’s 7th Congressional District, Republican Ryan Elijah defeated Democrat Bale Dalton by 49.71% to 49.21%. In Florida’s 9th Congressional District, Democratic incumbent Darren Soto defeated Republican Dan Green by 50.26% to 49.74%. In Florida’s 26th Congressional District, Republican incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart defeated Democrat Nicole Larkin by 49.86% to 49.12%. And in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, Republican incumbent Anna Paulina Luna defeated Democrat Leela Gray by 49.48% to 48.68%.
