As the final ballots trickled in on election night, Miami Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar’s lead over Democratic challenger Eliott Rodriguez narrowed into more uncertain territory.

It now appears the race for Florida’s 27th Congressional District is headed to a recount, which is automatically triggered when the margin of victory is less than 0.5%. Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia said Wednesday afternoon that the margin between Salazar and Rodriguez had dropped to 0.46%, “falling within Florida’s 0.50% automatic machine recount threshold.”

But she said Tuesday night that Salazar had likely won, given her unofficial lead at the time of roughly 1,300 ballots over Rodriguez, which has since shrunk to 1,116.

According to Garcia’s office, 202 vote-by-mail ballots that had signature discrepancies or other issues were still being evaluated Wednesday. An unknown number of early voting provisional ballots and Election Day provisional ballots are still also being reviewed.

“María Elvira is the winner, with or without a recount,” Garcia said on election night, then adding it was “possible but not probable” that enough ballots remained to be counted to flip the results.

She said recounts almost never end up going the other way.

“Usually the trend we see is what continues,” Garcia said, meaning if Salazar is ahead now, she’s likely to remain ahead.

Oren Rosenthal, general counsel for the Supervisor of Elections, estimated he’s seen about 20 recounts, and with the margin that Salazar was leading by on Tuesday night, it was unlikely the result will be overturned.

What the candidates are saying

Rodriguez’s campaign released a statement on Wednesday calling for the recount to proceed.

“Eliott believes in the sanctity of the vote,” wrote Fernand Amandi, consultant to the Rodriguez campaign. “Every eligible voter who cast a lawful ballot deserves to have it counted, whether they voted for him or for his opponent.”

Amandi said the purpose of a recount is for voters to have “full confidence in the final result.”

“Eliott wants to see this process play out fully and fairly. When every lawful vote has been counted and the result is certified, he will respect that result,” Amandi said. “That is what this community deserves, and it is what our democracy requires.”

By 11 p.m. on Election Day, Salazar appeared to be safe from recount with a .54% margin over Rodriguez. But election staff was still scanning hundreds of vote-by-mail ballots, and one precinct had yet to report its numbers.

Once those figures came in, Salazar’s lead slipped from .54% to .46%.

“With all ballots counted, Congresswoman Salazar has won the election by over 1,100 votes,” Ana Carbonell, a spokesperson for the Salazar campaign, told the Miami Herald on Wednesday. “In the event that Rodriguez does not want to concede, even though it’s an insurmountable margin, we welcome further confirmation.”

After the final precinct returned its results, Salazar declared victory, saying she was up by over a thousand votes.

“Thank you to the Republicans, to the Democrats and to the independents who have given me two more years representing them,” she told supporters outside Milanezza, an Argentinian-Italian restaurant in Key Biscayne.

But she added the moment was a time to pause, saying voters had spoken, and they want change with the economy and immigration.

“I’m going to continue representing this district, which is almost 80% Hispanic, and I’m going to continue saying to the Republican Party that we need to bring these people back to the GOP,” Salazar said.

The county still has to wait until all the votes have been tabulated to know whether a recount is needed, which won’t happen until provisional ballots have all been counted by Thursday evening.

Voters who had issues at the poll with their signature or otherwise may have had to cast provisional ballots. Those voters have until 5 p.m. on Thursday to “cure” those issues by submitting an affidavit affirming their identity and remedying the issue.

On Friday morning when the canvassing board meets again, they’ll certify the unofficial results and know whether a recount is needed. But even though the district is entirely contained within Miami-Dade, it’s up to the state to officially declare a recount, since it’s a federal race.

The Miami Herald reached out to the Florida Division of Elections for more information on when they may call for a recount but did not immediately receive a response.

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