Black Twitter proudly saluted Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum for his amazing Florida governor campaign against the GOP’s Ron DeSantis, who blew his racist dog whistle to rally his supporters from the first day of the competition.
SEE ALSO: Andrew Gillum Lost Florida Election Because Of Racism, Democrats Say
Gillum conceded defeat on Saturday, ending a battle for the governorship that continued more than a week after Election Day.
After making an initial concession on Nov. 6, the Tallahassee mayor took it back as the tight race for governor went to a machine recount.
By Thursday, it became evident that the race was finally over when the recount moved just one vote from the DeSantis column over to Gillum’s, CNN reported. This ends—for now—his bid to become Florida’s first African-American governor.
“I want to congratulate @RonDeSantisFL on becoming the next Governor of the great state of Florida. My wife R. Jai and I could not be prouder of the way we ran this race. We could not be more thankful to my running mate, @ChrisKingFL and his wife Kristen,” Gillum tweeted.
It didn’t take long during the campaign for the Trump-backed candidate to fire off a racist attack against Gillum. In August, DeSantis, appearing on Fox News, warned Florida not to “monkey this up” by electing Gillum. His racist dog whistle came less than 24 hours after the two candidates won their party’s nomination in the Florida primary election.
“You know, he is an articulate spokesman for those far-left views and he’s a charismatic candidate. The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state. That is not going to work. That’s not going to be good for Florida,” said DeSantis, who has a long history of associating with white supremacists.
Folks in the African-American community applauded Gillum. He was largely unknown before this race but at age 39 has become a nationally known political figure with a bright future.
