Former President Trump defeats Harris by wide margin in Florida, claiming state's 30 electoral votes

ORLANDO, Fla. - Former President Donald Trump topped Vice President Kamala Harris by nearly 15 percentage points in unofficial results in Florida as of about 10:30 p.m.

Earlier in the evening, the Associated Press called the state for Trump, citing a strong across-the-board showing, including winning the longtime Democratic stronghold of Miami-Dade County. Trump not only improved on his 2020 performance in Republican areas of the state. He made inroads with voters in Florida’s battleground areas and was on pace to outperform Vice President Kamala Harris in areas considered to be moderately Democratic, the Associated Press reported.

In a news release, Trump campaign senior advisers Danielle Alvarez and Brian Hughes said, "Florida voters cemented what we already knew: Florida is TRUMP Country.

The large margin of victory for Trump dispelled repeated assertions by Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried that Florida remained "in play."

Nationally, Florida wasn’t viewed as being competitive.

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The outlook was reflected in data compiled by the Alexandria, Va.-based ad-tracking firm AdImpact, which showed advertising in Florida for the presidential campaign dropped from $371 million in 2020 to about $4 million this year.

Floridians continued to be inundated by political messaging, but the focus shifted to down-ballot races like the race for U.S. Senate between Republican incumbent Rick Scott and Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and a handful of other issues, such as a pair of proposed constitutional amendments on abortion and recreational marijuana.

The last Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida was Barack Obama in 2012, who defeated Mitt Romney by a razor-thin margin.

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