Donald Trump won in Florida.

Happy now, Marc? AP just called Florida for Trump.

One thing to keep in mind as we've seen Biden's polling numbers vanish in states like Florida and North Carolina: His leads were much larger in Michigan and Wisconsin, and a bit larger in Pennsylvania. So he has a little cushion there to work with.

Trump lost Osceola by 14 points this time. He lost it by 25 in 2016

There's a lot of chalking up Biden's loss in Florida to "Cubans in Miami." Intriguingly, the other large Hispanic County of Florida, Osceola, showed Trump doing 11 points better than he did in 2016 (Trump did 22 points better in Miami-Dade). Osceola is a Puerto Rican-heavy county. So Biden's problem was with at least 60 percent of the Florida Hispanic electorate (if not more).

Alex's sources are likely right, and it's going to be a long wait. Now that California is in Biden's column, he's at 209 electoral votes, to Trump's 119. Let's assume Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas are going to Trump. Give him Hawaii, Biden needs to find 58 electoral votes somewhere — some combination of Minnesota (10), Arizona (11), Michigan (16), Wisconsin (10), Pennsylvania (20), Iowa (6), Nevada (6), Maine (3), ME-02 (1), NE-02 (1), Georgia (16). He can lose Georgia, but then he needs to win EVERYTHING ELSE if he also lost Pennsylvania.

Yeah, Florida is a weird island Nancy. No doubt. But FL, GA, NC, TX are all in (or appearing to head into) the Trump win column after so many people said they were full of only hot air. So maybe they get some more benefit of the doubt?

I do think, though, Trump aides are also trying to use the momentum of appearing to win Florida to make it seem like the race is over...That's a narrative that suits them, when we still are waiting on lots of data and when Florida really is its own unique (some would say weird) political island. cc: Marc

Marc It's not just Californians. Pete Giangreco, the veteran Dem strategist (and Illinois resident), told me yesterday he figured Dems were in for a loss in Florida. It's a state that looks so appealing so often, and then ... “It always works out this way ... The late vote seems to always break Republican in Florida."

I'm not sure if the advice of California Democrats is a good way to win battlegrounds, David. It looks as if Kamala Harris did little to help Biden in Florida. If the other battlegrounds swing to Trump, it might be time for the party to consider whether Biden's pledge to be the "most progressive" president and run with a California liberal on the ticket might have been wrong for the times. Still, Mulholland has a point. Florida is tough and getting tougher for Democrats.

Mucarsel Powell won in 2018 in good conditions for her, but the Cuban-American vote was ginned up by Trump and Gimenez is a Cuban-American. And the other part of that district is in the Florida Keys, which has a strong Trumpy rebel streak

For all the focus on Florida, I remember not long ago when plenty of Democrats were skeptical about the party's chances there -- and leery of investing. Bob Mulholland, the former longtime DNC member, just texted me this: 'After spending $200 million in Florida in 2016 & 2020, let's forget it til 2028."

Gimenez was one of the GOP's star House recruits this cycle. I remember the chatter from both Democrats and Republicans when he got into the race, Marc.

The Cuban vote roared in Miami-Dade County now that Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez got elected to congress. He was booed at a Trump rally for supporting mask mandates and lockdowns

Increasing amounts of incoming from the Trump campaign that Florida is not an outlier, that swing-state whites are going to break harder for Trump up north. I have no idea if that's right. But lots of folks said they were crazy about their confidence in winning Florida, and Trump did pretty solidly.

We should call Florida. It is impossible for Biden to catch up unless the Florida Division of Elections website is posting inaccurate information. Trump leads Biden by 381,158 votes out of 10,926,262. The state is reporting that a total of 11,002,345 votes were cast in the election. So there are only 76,083 votes left to count. Even if Biden won 100% of the outstanding votes, he would still lose by 306,075

Marc have you heard any regrets from Florida Democrats that they didn't try to stand up their ground game until the final weeks. The Biden camp had made a point of not doing in-person door-knocking and campaign events to try to show that they were the more responsible campaign until the last moment.

I don’t know Georgia as well as Florida, but considering how whites performed in Florida, it’s difficult to see how they don’t do the same in Georgia 

Looking at the limited returns we've seen so far, here are a few of my takeaways. --The president's socialism arguments seemed to gain traction in South Florida --Biden is running well in the college counties that have reported, suggesting he's running well with younger voters in those places --Trump's struggle in fast-growing Sun Belt suburbs is very real

And Trump's lead continues to grow in Florida. It's now 374k, 8k more in 6 minutes.

Trump's margin in Florida is growing. It's now 366k. It was 295k before. The big blue counties are almost fully reported out. Hard to see this not being a Trump win

The Biden campaign offers this updated take on Florida: "We said Florida was going to be close and... it is! We also said we didn't have to win it, and that remains true. We are encouraged by some of the gains, especially in suburbs, that could have national ramifications. We are also doing well in the non-Cuban Hispanic vote, which bodes well elsewhere. There are not places in other states that look like MIami-Dade. And, we have seen throughout this campaign that other Latino voters don’t vote like Cuban-Americans."Marc

Marc Explain this to a non-Florida Man. Biden looks like he might flip Pinellas and Jacksonville's Duval County. He's getting a bigger margin than Clinton out of Orlando's Orange County. He's running a few percentage points better than Clinton in some of the GOP counties in SW Florida. How bad, or just lackluster, is his performance in Miami-Dade?

Now, we can't say that Miami-Dade is completely responsible for Trump's likely win. If we apply Clinton's margins to Miami-Dade and keep the rest of the race stable, Trump still would be ahead statewide in Florida, by 117k votes, instead of 295k

Judging from two college counties -- Florida's Alachua COunty (U of Florida) and NC's Orange County (UNC) -- Biden is doing better than expected among younger voters. He's running ahead of Clinton's pace in those places and figures to get slightly bigger margins out of those counties.

Basically, this map looks amazingly similar to 2016, with one GIAN exception: Miami-Dade. Trump is doing 22 points better than in 2016.

In Orange County, Trump is doing just 2 points better than he did in 2016.

Natasha North Carolina was the only swing state that Mitt Romney won in 2012, after Barack Obama won it in 2008. Donald Trump did even better than Romney in 2016, and he’s been focused pretty heavily on it with his rallies this fall. A Joe Biden win in Florida could have been a knockout, but if he takes North Carolina, it’s no small deal. 

So I'm searching around Florida's vote, and I see very few signs of hope for Joe Biden and lots of promise for Donald Trump. Miami-Dade's importance here can't be understated. The big blue counties aren't finished with reporting their tallies, but Trump's margin now is 295,000. And at current support rates, it's just very difficult to see where Biden find the votes to overcome that

Biden -- and Dems -- have been far more bullish about NC than FL

Christopher Or Ohio. Democrats had been lobbying Biden to make an investment there in part because returns were expected early.

Gonna be wild if Texas is closer than Florida.

For example, Holly, one example from Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, that implied they were still counting on Pa could be seen in this quote. “If we just win one state between North Carolina and Georgia, then we could lose Michigan and Florida and still get over 270 electoral votes.”

Holly If Biden loses Fla, North Carolina and Georgia, his so-called greater Midwest certainly includes winning Pennsylvania. That’s a point that they made. Losing Pa would seem to require picking up something big elsewhere.

This is not a call. But I do not see the math for Joe Biden. It looks as if this election is obeying the same rules as other Florida elections: the candidate whose party out-votes the other party wins.

Christopher It seemed reminiscent of the Biden team's warnings that Iowa didn't matter. If the polls look bad for him don't worry about it!

To echo Natasha’s point in terms of Biden camp’s expectations setting in recent days, it’s possible they saw this coming. Lots of their comments have focused on how Biden doesn’t need to win Florida. They seemed very attuned to how the election is covered tonight and how Democrats would take the news. 

Laura Charlie Sabrina The question for me is does it point to a lack of investment on the part of the Biden campaign directly to Latinos? But the anti-immigration policies (and Trump’s warnings of socialism) and general rhetoric around immigrants obviously play very different in Arizona, Nevada and Texas than they do in Florida.

Polls, of course, have shown Biden underperforming with Latinos since the primary. But it's not for the same reasons. Trump's anti-socialist messaging has truly resonated with Cubans and Venezuelans here. But really — the story here is Cubans. We're talking 900,000+ eligible Cuban voters in Fla to Venezuelans' 90,000-ish.

Yeah, I have to agree with Christopher. I don't think we can really say how Biden will perform overall with Latinos nationwide. Mexican-Americans in Texas, Arizona and California are not Cuban-Americans in Florida.

To jump in here and zoom out a bit for Team Biden: the last two days they have given the impression that Florida would be tight and seemed to be setting up expectations that it could very well go to Trump. Seemed their messaging was to soften the blow if Florida went red early in the night.

Observation of Miami-Dade and Biden’s underperformance there compared with Clinton is it’s difficult at the moment to extrapolate what this means for Latino voters in states like Nevada, Arizona and Texas. Could be a warning sign, but also could be unique to Trump’s efforts in Fla, with Cuban, Venezuelan and Puerto Rican voters. 

As we're seeing these Florida numbers, a flashback to what Bernie Sanders told me in September about Biden's underperformance with Latino voters: “I think that the Biden campaign has got to go beyond establishment people, go to grassroots Latino leaders who are in contact with young people, with the communities, and help fund their activities. But I think there is a likelihood that if that is not done, turnout in the Latino community could be lower than we would like and it could result in Biden losing some very key states."

Also, in non-presidential news: Right now, Democratic incumbents in FL-26 and FL-27 are losing. More than $21 million was spent in FL-26 alone as Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez is trying to oust Rep. Debbie Mucarsel Powell. And Rep. Donna Shalala has thought to be safer, but she's down right now.

It's a few minutes before polls close in the Panhandle of Florida and the Democrat is up by just 0.4 percentage points. Normally, this would be the last time you see the state shaded blue because, after 7 Central time, the Panhandle Republican counties would provide an extra dose of red to flip the color of the map. But that's normally. Let's see how normal this is.

More Florida: With 91% in, Biden lead 51-47 in Jacksonville's Duval County. That would be a flipped county; Trump won it 48-47 and Romney won it in 2012, 51-48

Orlando's Orange County also looking solid for Dems. Biden is running 50k votes ahead of Clinton, with 93% in

But I can't stress this enough: Biden's win would be unique for two reasons. 1) Democratic voters were outvoted by Republicans 2) The Miami-Dade margins are the stuff of a losing Democratic campaign that needs far more votes out of here

GOP strategist just made this point to me: If Florida goes red in 2020, while Georgia, NC, Texas are seen as more/just as competitive for Dems, it could totally change Florida's role in presidential politics. It's big, expensive and complicated, so what if Dems stop challenging it and focus on other SEC-type states?

As the resident Cuban here, I've gotta say — these Miami-Dade numbers really speak to the inroads Trump made with that already Republican-leaning community. That's a story we've been telling for months (maybe, years?) and the Trump campaign has been pushing that out, but now we're seeing it play out for real.

So Miami-Dade might have another 250k votes left

Biden appears well ahead of Clinton's pace in Jacksonville's Duval County. Went narrowly for Trump in 2016 and Biden is at 54% with 75% of votes in. What do you make of that Marc

It's 1 million votes, so that's basically the entire early and absentee vote Holly

How much of the vote is counted in Miami-Dade Marc?

If Biden is so close in Dade, it's not as if he wasn't warned. Trump made a big play there. The Democrats were complacent. Now we're not forecasting Biden will lose Dade, but this close margin is not good for him https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/08/trump-miami-florida-support-410362

I'm joining live from Miami as well, where we just got early numbers for Miami-Dade County. Right now, we're seeing Biden 54 to Trump 45. The early look at this shows Trump really has made inroads with Cubans and other Latinos down here.

Now for the bad news for Biden: Miami-Dade County is not breaking his way the way it needs. With the total early vote, Biden is only ahead by 9 in a county that Clinton won by nearly 30

Ok. Coming back up for air here in Florida. We've got some preliminary results, mainly from early and absentee votes and Biden is doing well, as expected.

Polls are now closed in the Eastern Time Zone of FL, they'll be open for another hour in Central.

 If Biden wins FL tonight, it will be unique. He would be the 1st top-of-the-ticket candidate to carry the state even though his party had a lower share of ballots cast than the opponent’s party. Bottom line: when more Democrats vote than Republicans, the Democrat has won Florida. When more Republicans vote than Democrats, the Republican has won.

More Republicans are voting than Democrats in Florida. As of about 6:30, the GOP’s share of vote was 1.8 percentage points higher than the Democrats, known as an R+1.8 electorate. It was R+0.6 in 2016 when Trump won by 1.2 points.

We don’t know the final composition of the electorate. So it could be higher or lower than R+1.8.

To win like this, Biden would need a good share of independents (as much as a 7-point margin) or more GOP voters for him than Dem voters for Trump. Or a combo of both. Both are possible.

Vote totals are FINALLY coming in. So I’m checking out.

Greetings from downtown Washington, where streets are shutting down a few blocks away from me near the White House. I just got off a conference call with Trump advisers Bill Stepien and Jason Miller. Their argument right now is that Dems cannibalized their voters during the early vote period and then, without a well-funded ground game, scrambled at the end to turn out voters on Election Day. The Trump campaign further contended that they were effective in turning out voters today like Florida

Good evening from Miami, FLA. I'm watching three things: Florida, Florida, Florida. We're watching turnout and we can do it almost in real-time. As of the 5 p.m. update, Republicans have been dominating the day in turnout, as expected. They began the day in a hole to Democrats in total ballots cast, with the Dems ahead by 115,000 early and absentee ballots cast, a margin of 1.3 percentage points. Republicans then stormed the polls today and led Democrats by about 184,000 ballots cast, or 1.7 points. Biden wants to keep that margin at 2 or below. Not every Democrat is voting for Biden nor ever Republican for Trump, so we're using these raw ballot numbers as a sign of intensity. And right now, that's with Republicans. Now, 24% of the electorate are no independent party affiliation/third party voters, so it's anyone's guess how they break. Nearly every poll says Biden leads with them, but the question is how much. Biden probably needs to win independents by 7 points if the composition of the electorate continues to look like this. Polls close in an hour and 15 minutes in most of Florida, and Democrats tend to vote a little later in the day, so they could eat a bit back into Republican margins. The last Florida polls close at 7 p.m. Central/8 p.m. Eastern in the GOP-leaning Panhandle, so there's time for more Republican votes, too

Good evening from the great Midwest. I’m just dying to know whether Team Biden can flip one of the tougher states on their map like AZ, NC or GA. The Biden campaign seems least confident about Florida but seemed to feel pretty good about reclaiming the Blue Wall. I’m also keeping an eye on Wisconsin, a battleground close to my heart (and to my home). Democrats there are feeling good because they ran up such a strong lead in early voting.

Hi everyone from D.C.! I'm watching to see what happens in Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest states which seems to be the most crucial for a potential Trump victory given the recent polling and his path to winning in 2016....I'm also watching to see what emerges as the chief issue for voters: the economy (which historically has favored Trump), or his administration's handling of Covid (where he has been far weaker in the polls). And then, like Anita, I am watching to see how POTUS reacts. If we do not know the outcome of the election tonight, is he cool, or does he try to claim victory regardless?

Hi from DC! We made it y'all! I agree with Elena; we should be able to choose "every single thing!"

But my eyes are on Florida because it will be key to letting us know how long this night might be. Republicans are feeling really good that the GOP "day of" numbers today are exactly where they needed them to be even with all of the early voting we saw in the state. Florida is a must-win state for President Trump (not Biden) and it's a state that is a small United States in its own right aka lots of different voting groups we'll see be important nationwide. It will also be a state that might get called early.