After getting trounced in the Florida House and Senate races and a GOP sweep of the Cabinet, state Sen. Jeremy Ring is demanding that Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman resign.

“With the momentum of all the losses on the Democratic sides, there needs to be new leadership. Karen Thurman needs to resign. Immediately,” Ring, D-Margate, said of the Florida Democratic Party chairwoman early today.

Republicans swept the Cabinet seats and won a veto-proof majority in both the state Senate and ultimately recaptured the governor’s seat after Palm Beach County’s election returns left Rick Scott’s victory in the lurch overnight.

Ring, a moderate Democrat who frequently votes with Republicans, said the “election activities of the Republicans trumping the Democrats” at polling places he visited on Election Day demonstrate that his party is in a shambles.

“Whether it was hundreds of more signs and volunteers and palm cards and all the precincts covered, I didn’t see any coordinated effort on the Democratic side yesterday,” Ring said.

Ring was among several prominent Democrats who tried to oust Thurman when she was reelected as chairwoman two years ago.

Those efforts failed because no replacement could be found, Ring said.

He blamed Thurman for that.

“Part of any leader’s job is not to only raise money and recruit candidates but they should recruit their successor…part of her job is to have a succession plan. Clearly there isn’t one,” he said.

Democrat Alex Sink is now conceding the governor’s race to Rick Scott.

After a long night, Scott’s campaign staff and supporters are gathered in a ballroom celebrating Sink’s long-awaited concession speech and anticipating Scott’s arrival.

Late results from Palm Beach County left the state without a clear winner last night, but after most of the returns are in Sink appeared to have at least 30,000 fewer votes than needed to trigger an automatic recount.

TAMPA — Alex Sink says she has lost the governor’s race.

“While this is one of the closest elections in Florida gubernatorial history, there is not path to victory for us,” Sink said. “Rick Scott will be the next governor of the state of Florida.”

Sink grew teary but didn’t break down. Sink said she called Scott to congratulate him, and asked him to keep in mind the closeness of the election.

“He will need to work very hard to bring our state together,” Sink said. “I hope Rick Scott remembers that here are 2.5 million floridians who did not vote for him, and his highest priority needs to be to bring our state together to meet our challenges.”

Sink blamed a “tsunami” of voter discontent and Scott’s record spending for her loss. Sink said she had no regrets about the way she ran her campaign.

ST. PETERSBURG — A day after Floridians delivered a stunning rebuke of his independent run for the U.S. Senate, Gov. Charlie Crist emerged from the tony confines of the Renaissance Vinoy Resort and Golf Club this morning looking and acting like he was still running for office.

Shaking the hands of bellhops and hugging well-wishers who happened by, a smiling Crist said he has no immediate plans other than spending the day fishing on his boat Freedom. And then?

“I’m going to finish strong as your governor,” he said.

The 54-year-old declined to say whether he sees politics in his future. “One day at time,” he said.

However, those who gathered at the Vinoy for his short-lived election night party on Tuesday night said they can’t imagine his 18-year political career is over.

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After shutting down their election night party after 2 a.m. this morning, Rick Scott’s campaign is waiting to see what Democrat Alex Sink will do before deciding their next move.

After the last of Palm Beach County’s votes came in after 4 a.m. this morning, Scott was ahead 48.8 percent and Sink 47.8 percent and led by about 53,000 votes – far more than the 26,000 vote margin that would require an automatic machine recount of the race.

Sink is holding a press conference at 10:45 a.m.

“Our lawyers and our advisors are looking into the uncounted votes,” Sink spokeswoman Kyra Jennings said about 9:30 a.m.

Scott’s team, meanwhile, is holed up at the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina hotel waiting for Sink to concede so they can begin the transition to the office.

A few minutes after 4 a.m., Palm Beach County finished tallying votes from all county precincts.

With all 789 precincts reporting, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink had 216,438 votes in Palm Beach County while Republican candidate Rick Scott had 146,786.

Scott remained ahead in statewide tallies.
Absentee and provisional ballots remain uncounted.

The county’s canvassing board will reconvene at 9 a.m. to continue reviewing problematic ballots.

With votes from 96 percent of county precincts now tallied, gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink is leading opponent Rick Scott in Palm Beach County by 68,738 votes.

But with 32 precincts still uncounted, residents are not likely to know the county’s final precinct count until about 4:30 a.m., Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said.

Statewide, Scott had a roughly 72,000-vote lead on Sink earlier this morning, according to the Florida Division of Elections.

Sink’s Palm Beach County votes so far: 214,153.

Scott’s county total so far: 145,415.

Final precinct tallies have been delayed by employee error this morning, causing elections officials to recount votes from more than a dozen precincts.

The vote count in Palm Beach County continues this morning, with the county elections supervisor predicting it will be at least 4:30 a.m. before all precincts are counted.

About 2:30 a.m., Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said an employee error meant that the votes from 10 of the remaining 53 precincts will have to be recounted, delaying the final count another two hours.

A confident Scott and his wife Ann came on the stage shortly after 2 a.m. – nearly two hours after Alex Sink had gone home – and spoke to about 100 weary stragglers.

“I apologize this has taken so long,” the ever-polite Scott said, adding that he was glad it didn’t rain although it could have without him knowing it when he was sequestered in his suite watching the election returns on television.

“After all the votes are counted..I am absolutely confident I will be the next great governor of the state of Florida,” he said.

Scott said he would have more to say later today

“We know we’re going to win and we look forward to getting this state back to work,” he said, riffing on his trademark “Let’s Get to Work” campaign slogan.

Scott sidestepped a question about his disappointment over not being able to declare victory.

“I had a great speech,” he said, smiling. “I had a great speech. We had great confetti and everything. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans will control the House, but the Democrats will still have the Senate — and Majority Leader Harry Reid will still be among them.
Reid defeated tea party challenger Sharron Angle in a Nevada Senate race that had been seen as a dead heat in recent polls. Angle, a relative newcomer, had raised eyebrows with some of her libertarian views, including a call for an end to Social Security.
Republicans were able to capture six other Senate seats that had been in Democratic hands, including the seat that was once held by President Barack Obama in Illinois.
In the House, the man who’s expected to be the new speaker, John Boehner, says he’s received a congratulatory phone call from Obama. He says he told Obama that Americans expect them to cut spending and create jobs.

Votes from 93 percent of county precincts have now been counted, and gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink is leading opponent Rick Scott in Palm Beach County by just over 68,000 votes.

Those figures, though, do not include a large number of absentee votes that still have to be tallied by the county’s canvassing board.

The last of the county’s ballots were not delivered to elections official’s central warehouse until 12:30 p.m.

Of the county’s 789 precincts, votes in 736 have been counted.

TAMPA – With Rick Scott ahead by less than 1.5 percent of the vote and ballots still left uncounted in Palm Beach and three other counties, Democrat Alex Sink refused to concede the race to GOP opponent Rick Scott.

“This is turning out, as expected, to be a nail-biter. We’re coming down to the wire in what looks to be a dead even race,” Sink told a crowd of more than 200 supporters shortly after midnight.

She said hundreds of thousands of votes in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Hillsborough counties remain to be counted.

“We’re Floridians so we know what it means to count every single vote. We will wait to have all the voices heard.

In Fort Lauderdale, Scott watched election returns on the 12th floor of the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Marina hotel but did not address anxious supporters eager to cap off a night of partying with a victory speech.

“It’s embarrassing. One of the most important races in the country and Palm Beach County can’t get their races in on time?” Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, said with disbelief.

“So what is this, the first election she’s ever been part of?” Asked former secretary of state Sandy Mortham, now a lobbyist.

“They might consider updating their technology,” Mortham said. “I mean, why wouldn’t they have modems?”

Adam Putnam, the state’s new Agricultural Commissioner, warned that Republicans need to deliver or else they will find themselves in 2012 in the same position as the Democrats this year.

Putnam, who along with North Palm’s Jeff Atwater (Chief Financial Officer) and Tampa’s Pam Bondi (Attorney General), will be part of the state’s second all-Republican cabinet, and the first since 2007.

“If we fail to produce, we will suffer the consequences like the current administration suffered tonight,” Putnam said late Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, Bondi is promising to fight against President Obama’s agenda.

“I also look forward to continuing Florida’s leadership in the fight against the federal healthcare takeover,” Bondi said in her victory speech.

CNN is projecting that Democrats will maintain control of the U.S. Senate.

Democrats lost Senate seats in at least five states Tuesday, but were guaranteed to keep the majority thanks to wins in California and West Virginia. the Associated Press reported.

Republicans scored big wins, taking Senate seats from Democrats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arkansas, North Dakota and Indiana. The net gain of 10 they needed for control of the chamber, however, eluded them.
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As the vote-tallying continues in Palm Beach County, representatives from Rick Scott’s gubernatorial campaign have arrived the county canvassing board’s meeting.

No one has made an official comment, but they said they are concerned about the vote-counting pace.

By 11 p.m., Palm Beach County was one of just nine counties that had not yet tallied all of the votes cast in its precincts.

Of those nine, it had the lowest percentage counted – 41 percent.

County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher tonight attributed the delays to the county’s extraordinary size (geographically it’s the largest in the state) and the fact that the county does not use modems to sent precinct numbers to headquarters like many other counties.

“Some people send it by modem,” she said. “We don’t.”

“It just takes this long to do it here,” she said.

Palm Beach County’s canvassing board, which evaluates problematic ballots rejected by electronic ballot scanners, has been inundated by absentee ballots altered by voters before being submitted to elections officials, the county’s elections supervisor said.

Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said an unusual number of absentee voters cast votes on judges or proposed Constitutional amendments but then changed them, causing problems in the ballots that require them to be reviewed by hand.

“They do all kinds of creative things at home,” Bucher said, adding that some people used “Wite-Out” to erase and then change a vote.

While problematic ballots are a normal part of any election, Bucher said this year’s crop will likely keep the canvassing board working late into the night.

A large surge in late-day voters led to long lines at several voting precincts across Palm Beach County, and some precincts stayed open two hours late to accommodate everyone wanting to cast ballots, the county’s elections supervisor said.

“It’s been a busy day,” Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher said. “I got reports that there were lines all over the county.”

By 10 p.m. votes from 141 of the county’s 789 precincts had been reported. Bucher attributed the delays to late hours at some precincts and the heavy voter turnout.

“It sounds like a lot of people decided to come to the polls at the end of the day,” she said.

She said in at least one precinct in Palm Beach Gardens the last vote was not cast until 9 p.m., two hours after polls officially close.

She added that “we’re pleased with that” but said the late surge in turnout would prompt delays in vote-tallying.

“Everything’s working as it should be,” she said. “It’s just going to be a late night.”

GOP hopeful Allen West was leading incumbent U.S. Rep. Ron Klein handily in the closely watched District 22 congressional race.
In early returns, West had 58 percent of the vote to Klein’s 43 percent.
The Klein/West race is believed to be the most heavily financed congressional contest in the nation.
 As the night went on Tuesday in Boca Raton and it became clear that the predicted wave of GOP victories in the midterm elections  was a fact, the hundreds of participants at the “Allen West for Congress” rally were riding that wave with whoops and hollers and just holding on until they could claim a victory of their own.
  Totals for West’s hard fought campaign against District 22 Democratic incumbent Ron Klein were sparse at 10 p.m., but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the hundreds of attendees in a ballroom at the Boca Raton Marriott.
   “The fat lady hasn’t sung yet,” said former GOP Congressman Clay Shaw, who lost to Klein in 2006, “but can hear her warming up.”
  The two large screens in the crowded ballroom  were tuned to Fox News and oversized images of Bill O’Reilly, Juan Williams, Sarah Palin  and other Fox commentators dominated the room.
 Every time another Republican was declared a winner the crowd erupted in cheers. There were a lot of eruptions  during the evening, but the victory of Tea Party favorite Rand Paul in the Kentucky and Florida’s Marco Rubio in their  Senate races were particularly loud.
 Meanwhile the Klein forces were touting their ground game and saying it would pay off in the end.
“During the critical Get Out the Vote period of Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the Klein campaign made well over 100,000 phone calls and knocked on over 46,000 doors,” said statement from the campaign. “The Klein campaign personally contacted nearly 150,000 voters in the 22nd district.”