MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki took a moment to process early results from Miami-Dade in Florida during a live telecast on Wednesday.
He was analysing early results from Georgia when he paused for a brief moment and said “I am told we just got Miami Dade. This is a big one in Florida”.
Kornacki processed what his screen was showing at the time: Val Demmings at 46.2 and Marco Rubio at 53 points.
He gasped and then muttered, ‘This. Yeah. Let’s put this in perspective”.
He then continued: “Miami Dade county has 2-3 million people. In 2016, this was a Democratic county by 30 points.”
Miami Dade is 70 per cent Hispanic. It began shifting to the Republicans in 2020, the host said.
“And look at this. In the early vote, Marco Rubio is leading in Miami Dade county by 7 points.”
Then he moved on to the discussion on the gubernatorial race.
Later, reports confirmed that Republican senator Mr Rubio defeated Democratic congresswoman Val Demings in the US Senate race to win his third six-year term.
The two spent a combined $110m on their campaigns nationwide.
The Tallahassee Democrat reported that across Florida, nearly 316,000 more GOP voters than Democratic ones had cast early ballots.
In all, more than 4.9 million Floridians voted early, which may represent more than half the total number of voters.
In the gubernatorial race, Ron DeSantis won reelection against Democrat Charlie Crist.
Mr DeSantis said at the election night party: “We have rewritten the political map. Thank you for honouring us with a win for the ages.”
Meanwhile, Reuters quoted David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida as saying that “DeSantis is prepared for a head-to-head primary, and I anticipate he or his team will indicate that in the coming days. They believe they can win sufficient delegates to capture the nomination and defeat Trump”.
