Florida Election Results

Gov. Rick Scott’s narrow re-election in one of the nation’s most expensive races means that state government remains firmly in Republican hands. As the nation learned in 2000, that control can influence the outcome of a presidential election.

In national contests, Florida is the purplest of states: It has been carried by the winner in five straight presidential races, and it was the most closely contested state in 2000 and 2012. But at the state level, Republicans have had the upper hand for years, and they won every statewide race this year and kept control of the Legislature.

Mr. Scott’s victory quashed what would have been a remarkable comeback for his opponent, former Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican-turned-Democrat. In exit polls, a strong majority of voters said Mr. Crist’s party switch was motivated more by political opportunism than real beliefs.

Four years ago, Mr. Scott made his first run for public office as a fiscally conservative technocrat, with experience as a venture capitalist and an executive of a hospital chain, and in a boon year for Republicans, he eked out a narrow win.

But then he steered farther to the right than many Floridians expected. In his first year, Mr. Scott carried out budget cuts, killed a high-speed rail project and signed a law — later struck down in court — requiring drug testing of welfare applicants. He had not campaigned on social issues, but he signed anti-abortion bills, including one requiring that a woman have an ultrasound before the procedure.

An opponent of the Affordable Care Act, he at first rejected its offer of Medicaid expansion, turning down billions of dollars in federal aid, and then took steps making it harder to get low-cost insurance under the law. He reversed his position on Medicaid expansion but did not push it through the Legislature, where it died.

His approval ratings fell below 30 percent at onetime, and Mr. Scott was being called the nation’s most unpopular governor. But with a shift to the center and the help of a strengthening economy, his standing improved. He pulled even with Mr. Crist in polls, with a barrage of ads calling him a flip-flopper on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage.

Polls showed that in the final weeks, when the race was too close to call, many voters were unhappy with their choices and unsure of their allegiances.

Each party knocked off one incumbent, further reinforcing Florida’s status as an unpredictable swing state.

A Republican, Carlos Curbelo, defeated Representative Joe Garcia, a Democrat, in the 26th District, at the southern tip of the state. In a district carried by Mitt Romney, Mr. Garcia was expected to have trouble defending a seat he first won two years ago against a damaged Republican incumbent.

But in the Second District, in the panhandle, Gwen Graham, daughter of the former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham, unseated Representative Steve Southerland, a two-term Republican.

In August, a state judge ruled that the congressional districts drawn by the Legislature were improperly gerrymandered to benefit Republicans, but that it was too late to change them for this year’s election.

A large majority of voters supported a measure that would have made Florida the first Southern state to legalize marijuana for medical use. But it was not enough: The measure fell short of the 60 percent needed to amend the state Constitution.

Voters easily approved another constitutional amendment to significantly increase the state’s purchase of land to preserve water resources and wildlife habitat.