Florida Not a Given for Bush This Fall

[AmyStrange]

Florida Not a Given for Bush This Fall
Thu Jun 10,10:53 AM ET
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer

FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=2043&e=15&u=/ap/20040610/ap_on_el_pr/florida_four_years_later
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - Plenty has changed in Florida since the days of dimpled chads and disputed ballots, much of it in President Bush (news - web sites)'s favor. Brother Jeb easily won re-election as governor in 2002, and the Republican Party increased its ranks. The economy has shown signs of improvement, with more than a quarter-million new jobs.

But the narrow advantage the GOP incumbent carried into the election year seems to have evaporated, at least for now, as Florida voters of all political stripes expressed dismay over the war in Iraq (news - web sites).

The race is as close as it was four years ago, when a mere 537 votes tipped the state and the presidency to Bush.

Since then, the capital of close elections has grown by more than 1 million, mostly Democratic-leaning Hispanics and blacks as well as conservative whites drawn by Florida's warm temperatures and booming suburbs.

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