When most state polls closed at 7 p.m. and early results started streaming in, the tweets from team Romney ceased almost entirely. The numbers pointed to another Florida photo finish: Barack Obama narrowly behind Romney in the onetime conservative stronghold of Duval County; the president comfortably leading in Hillsborough, the state’s best bellwether; overall, Romney behind.
Florida is still counting votes, but in the end Obama probably will again win Florida, though his slim 237,000-vote margin in 2008 will be even slimmer, around 50,000 votes.
As exhausted campaign operatives on both sides are preparing to pack up and finally sleep, Republicans find themselves having to acknowledge at least one decisive factor: The hype about Obama’s vaunted get-out-the-vote machine was on the mark.
