MIAMI (AFP) - US President George W. Bush`s Florida victory, which helped secure his re-election, dealt a number of surprises, not least of which was the fact that voting went smoothly across the state that held up the 2000 presidential results for five weeks.
The outcome itself had remained uncertain until the last moment, following a tight race with John Kerry, whose campaign had launched a massive effort to get out the vote.
The Republicans` own mobilization campaign had been largely underestimated, analysts said Wednesday, attributing Bush`s five-point Florida lead in large part to support for his anti-terrorism policies, as well as his stance on moral values.
As Kerry conceded the US election Wednesday, electoral officials in Florida heaved a sigh of relief after their state had been spared the chaos and controversy that turned the last election into a 36-day recount nightmare.
"It was a bit of a surprise," said political analyst Bob Jackson, referring to both the outcome and the generally trouble-free voting.
"The initial results had shown Kerry might have room for optimism ... but now there are not a lot of happy Democrats in Florida," said Jackson, of Florida State University.
The Republican president made significant gains in an area of central Florida known after the I-4 highway that crosses the state east to west.
"The I-4 corridor went mainly Bush," said Susan McManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, adding that much of that support came from white families.
"The Republicans did achieve one of their goals, which was to increase votes from social conservatives," she said.
Both camps had also actively courted Florida`s Hispanic and Jewish voters, while the Democrats went all-out to energize their black supporters.
"We turned out the Jewish vote like never before in Florida," Palm Beach County`s Republican Party Chairman Sid Dinerstein told AFP.
The 500,000 Jewish voters in Florida had traditionally sided with the Democrats, but Dinerstein, who campaigned hard to sway them, said Bush`s strong pro-Israel policies enabled the Republicans to make major gains in that community.
On the other hand, the Democrats believe they managed to win some additional votes from the Cuban-American community, once a monolithic Republican voter bloc, which counts about 450,000 registered voters.
"There`s been a significant shift there," said Joe Garcia who recently quit as head of the influential Cuban American National Foundation to help increase Hispanic support for the Democrats.
He said the Democrats also gained important support from non-Cuban Hispanics, but not enough to offset Bush`s gains in central Florida.
Both campaigns had deployed thousands of lawyers to monitor the elections alongside thousands more non-partisan volunteers.
"I was a little bit uneasy, with all these thousands and thousands of attorneys waiting to be mobilized," said Jackson. "When people are looking for trouble, they often can find it."
But the campaign`s lawyers appeared to be ready to pack their bags.
"Whenever there was a problem, we were able to deal with it," said Steve Zack, general counsel for the Kerry campaign in the southeastern state.
The Republicans said they had reports of ineligible voters casting ballots, but indicated those appeared to be isolated.
Electoral observers had also expressed concerns about voters not getting their absentee ballots in time, as well as reported attempts to keep some voters away from the polls.
11/03/2004 - 17:07 GMT - AFP