Lawton Chiles won with 61.7% of the vote (1,637,667 votes), ahead of Van B. Poole with 38.3% (1,015,330 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 23.5 percentage points (622,337 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Democratic lead of 23.5 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 26.8 points toward Democrats. The winning party changed.
2,653,419 votes were counted in this race, for 2 candidates or options.
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