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14 August 2020updated 04 Sep 2021 8:05am

US election swing states: The Florida Factor

Why the Sunshine State is facing a typically mixed election forecast ahead of November.  

By Emily Tamkin

Since 1964, the presidential candidate who has won Florida and its 29 electoral college votes has also won the White House in every election except 1992. In that time, the constant has not been whether Florida goes for Republicans or Democrats – both parties have been in power in the past three decades – but that the vote has been close.

In 2016, Donald Trump won with 48.6 per cent of the vote compared to Hillary Clinton’s 47.4 percent. In 2008, Barack Obama had 51 percent, compared to John McCain’s 48.2. And no one, of course, can forget the 2000 election, which came down to 537 votes out of six million cast (and a Supreme Court decision that eventually left George W Bush the winner).

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