While the vote count is still under way in electorally-dysfunctional Florida, even the Romney campaign can see that's it's a lost cause.
The Republicans conceded the race in Florida this afternoon, bringing the final Electoral College totals to 332 for President Obama and 206 for Mitt Romney.
"The numbers in Florida show this was winnable," said Romney adviser Brett Doster, speaking to The Miami Herald.
"We thought based on our polling and range of organization that we had done what we needed to win. Obviously, we didn't, and for that I and every other operative in Florida has a sick feeling that we left something on the table. I can assure you this won't happen again."
The vote is still unofficial as poll workers struggle to count misprinted ballots, as well as provisional and absentee ballots.
With over 8 million votes counted, Obama leads by just under 50,000 votes, but most of the remaining ballots come from heavily Democratic-leaning counties.
Florida is again the last state to finish its election count, as it was in 2000. The difference in this case is that it doesn't matter.
The election was decided just after 11pm on Tuesday, once the result in Ohio became apparent, giving Obama enough electoral votes to win, no matter the end result in Florida.
Florida's election night was plagued with long lines, with some voters still waiting to cast a ballot after midnight, an hour after the election had been called in Obama's favor.
Republican Governor Rick Scott went to court to reduce the number of early voting days from 13 to 8, contributing to the long waits. The ballot was also the longest in the country, with a dozen pages of ballot initiatives for voters to plod through.
Even though the Romney camp won't be mounting any challenges to the vote count, Florida must still finish, so the election ends in an accurate popular vote tally.
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