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Floridians turned down a state constitutional amendment for medical marijuana, but it’s clear a majority of voters were all for the idea. Amendment 2, which would have changed the state’s Constitution to allow the sale of cannabis for certain medical conditions such as cancer and Parkinson’s disease, rang up 57.6 percent of the vote. Unfortunately for the measure’s supporters, amendments require at least 60 percent of the vote to pass. That close margin means that medical marijuana will continue to be debated, and not just in Florida. Two dozen states have medical marijuana laws, and Oregon and the District of Columbia voted to decriminalize recreational pot in the same general election. Ben Pollara, the campaign manager for the group behind the amendment, United for Care, tweeted two days after the election that the drug proved more popular than Florida’s governors. The tweet read: #YesOn2 got a higher % of the vote than the last 6 #flgov including @JebBush in his 2002 landslide #tallyorbust #2016. We know the last couple of elections Gov. Rick Scott hasn’t even had to break 50 percent of the total votes in order to win, but is Pollara right about the last six Florida governors not garnering as much as 57.6 percent? The voting rolls The Twitter shorthand #flgov generally refers to the gubernatorial campaign, but has been used interchangeably to denote any tweet about a governor, too. We reached out to Pollara to ask him to clarify whether he meant the last six governors or the last six gubernatorial elections, because there’s a difference. Pollara told us he meant the last six gubernatorial elections, going back to Lawton Chiles’ victory over Jeb Bush in 1994. But because of the tweet’s wording, we looked at the last six governors elected, some of whom served two terms, going back to the 1978 campaign. Keep in mind, we’re looking for governors who won 57.6 percent of the vote or higher. Election year Governor Winning votes Total votes Percentage 1978 Bob Graham 1,406,580 2,530,468 55.6% 1982 Bob Graham 1,739,553 2,688,566 64.7% 1986 Bob Martinez 1,847,525 3,386,171 54.6% 1990 Lawton Chiles 1,995,206 3,530,871 56.5% 1994 Lawton Chiles 2,135,008 4,206,659 50.8% 1998 Jeb Bush 2,191,105 3,964,441 55.3% 2002 Jeb Bush 2,856,845 5,100,581 56.0% 2006 Charlie Crist 2,519,845 4,829,270 52.2% 2010 Rick Scott 2,619,335 5,359,735 48.9% 2014 Rick Scott 2,865,075 5,950,867 48.2% Source: Florida Department of State, Division of Elections If we were to look only at the last six elections, Pollara could be correct, because the highest margin of victory going back to 1994 was Bush’s 56 percent in 2002 against Bill McBride. As Pollara noted when we contacted him, if you’re counting that way, it could be the last eight elections. But if we’re going by individuals elected governor, there’s one obvious outlier: Graham, who was immensely popular and beat Republican state legislator Skip Bafalis with 64.7 percent of the vote in 1982. For comparison, Amendment 2 garnered 3,370,323 out of 5,849,118 votes cast for the measure to get that 57.6 percent. That’s more individual votes than any winning candidate has ever received. Our ruling Pollara said Amendment 2 won a higher percentage of the vote than the last six Florida governors, including Bush’s 2002 landslide. He’s right about the 2002 contest, and when you look back at the last six elections (eight, really) as Pollara intended, that’s true, too. But there’s a glaring outlier when you look at the last six people elected governor -- Graham’s 1982 win, when he garnered 64.7 percent of the vote. We rate this statement Mostly True.
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