Florida voters put Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on top in the state’s presidential primary. Trump’s victory ended U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s run for the White House.
Orange County Supervisor of Elections reports a 40 percent voter turnout, Brevard County reports a 52 percent turnout, Osceola reports 37 percent.
Unofficial results across central Florida show Trump winning Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola and Volusia counties with Trump grabbing the largest share of republicans in Volusia County.
Lake County
Hillary Clinton – 63.4%
Bernie Sanders – 33.7 %
Marco Rubio – 22.6%
Donald Trump – 49%
Brevard County
Hillary Clinton – 59.6%
Bernie Sanders – 37.7%
Marco Rubio – 24.7%
Donald Trump – 46.4%
Orange County
Hillary Clinton – 63.8%
Bernie Sanders – 34.5%
Marco Rubio – 30.7%
Donald Trump – 39.7%
Osceola County
Hillary Clinton – 68%
Bernie Sanders – 30%
Marco Rubio – 25.6%
Donald Trump – 47%
Seminole County
Hillary Clinton – 58.2%
Bernie Sanders – 39.9%
Marco Rubio – 28.8%
Donald Trump – 41.6%
Volusia County
Hillary Clinton – 59.7%
Bernie Sanders – 36.3%
Marco Rubio – 21%
Donald Trump – 53%
Voters Around Orlando Disappointed, Others Cheer Primary Results
Silence fell over Marco Rubio’s primary election watch party as the candidate withdrew from the race. The Republican Florida Senator lost to front-runner Donald Trump by nearly half a million votes.
Disappointed volunteer Jeff Lawson said he and others will launch a new campaign to keep Republican frontrunner Donald Trump from receiving the party nomination. “We wholly believe he does not have the conservative principles. It’s not just a fight that’s going to be happening here but it’s going to be happening across the country,” said Lawson.
Cheering could be heard blocks away from democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s downtown Orlando primary election party. The former secretary of state and first lady won a large portion of Florida’s democratic race with more than 60 percent of votes.
Orlando City Commissioner Patty Sheehan joined supporters who drove in from across central Florida. “The voters are seeing through that and they want to believe in something and I think that the Secretary stands for helping, you know, average Americans,” said Sheehan. “And I welcome a Hillary/Trump. I think she can beat him.”
Bernie Sanders supporters in central Florida say they are not giving up. Dozens of supporters gathered at the campaign's state headquarters in Orlando to watch the returns. Among them was James Auffant, secretary of the Florida Democratic Party.
"We have already won. We pushed Hillary such far to the left that there is no way for her to come back,” said Auffant. “We have gotten our message out. We have said we what we have to say, and we have expressed how we feel about it."
The supporters stood among the empty cubicles of the campaign office, many of them nursing beers and talking of delegates and revolution. They said they are looking ahead to primaries in states they believe will be more favorable for Sanders, states like California.
In a packed bar in Orlando, there are men, women and children wearing Make America Great shirts, hats and stickers. Brett Schulman and his 200-pound Saint Bernard named Teddy Bear were there.
When asked how he felt about Marco Rubio dropping out of the race, Trump supporter Schulman quipped, “I just heard a couple minutes that Donald Trump said to Rubio: You’re fired.”
While the mood was celebratory, some worried about the future of the billionaire-turned-Republican front runner. “Rubio drops out, I don’t how many votes are gonna go to the Cruz campaign. That’s gonna be a little tougher,” said Richard Copely of Orlando.
One sign of how explosive this campaign has been: The owner of this bar in Orlando where the Trump rally was held didn’t want the location identified.