The state of Florida has voted for Republican Donald Trump, after a nail-biter of a race.
The state was too close to call for most of Tuesday evening, with the Democratic and Republican candidates swapping the lead over the course of the night.
But Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 1.4 per cent of the vote, 49.15 per cent to her 47.71 per cent, with nearly all precincts reporting.
READ MORE: Live real-time results
A single third-party candidate, Libertarian Gary Johnson, had significantly more votes than separated the two major candidates.
More than half of Florida’s active registered voters cast ballots ahead of Election Day. Numbers released by the state Division of Elections early Tuesday show that 6.51 million voters either voted early or voted by mail. There are nearly 12.9 million active registered voters.
Florida is an important state for a campaign to win, as it holds a whopping 29 electoral votes. Only California and Texas have more. The state of New York, home to both Trump and Clinton, also has 29. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.
READ MORE: How exactly do Americans elect their president?
Florida has been a high-stakes electoral battleground before.
In November of 2000, the outcome of the whole presidential election hinged on Florida’s electoral votes.
Improbably, Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush were separated by only a few hundred votes, though six million were cast in the state. At one point, the parties were arguing about the legal significance of ‘chads,’ the little discs of paper that are punched out by a hole-punch.
The weeks that followed saw a legalistic, increasingly absurd and high-stakes battle between the two parties over the tiniest details of the election.
On December 11, 2000, more than a month after the election, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for Bush (on a straight party-line vote that reflected the presidents that had appointed the justices), Gore conceded the election, and he became president.
With files from the Associated Press
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