1. President Donald Trump did have the supporter among Florida voters to push Ron DeSantis to victory by 55,340 votes. Escambia County went heavy for DeSantis, but Andrew Gillum succeeded in garnering a larger percentage of the vote (40.8 percent) here than Barack Obama did in 2012 (39.1 percent) or 2008 (39.8 percent).
2. Rick Scott’s campaign strategy of going negative the weekend before the general election also worked. He narrowly beat Sen. Bill Nelson by 34,503 votes.
3. Grover Robinson won the mayor’s race by 11.6 percentage points. The city set a new turnout record by casting 26,119 votes in the race. In 2014, only 20,553 people voted. In the primary and general elections, Brian Spencer spent $277,536 to get 14,911 votes–about $18.61 per vote. Ann Hill spent $4.41 per vote to win the Council District 6 seat.
4. Commissioner Doug Underhill held on to enough Republicans in District 2 to beat Scott Trotter by 12.5 points. In 2014, Underhill won easily with 65 percent of the vote. This time he garnered only 56 percent.
5. Sheriff David Morgan did see Underhill win but fell short on getting Spencer elected against the sheriff’s political nemesis Grover Robinson. We can call it a push.
