U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican, will face Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in November. (Photo of Scott via Getty images; photo of Mucarsel-Powell from her U.S. Senate campaign)
Speaking in front of a crowd of more than 150 people who gathered at the “Casa Kamala” headquarters of the Hillsborough County Democratic Hispanic Caucus in Tampa last Friday night, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell took the stage after being introduced by Rhode Island Democratic U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and promised fellow Democrats that together they would “retire Rick Scott in November.”
“Some people call me DMP, which stands for ‘don’t mess with my people,’” she began.
“And Rick Scott has been messing with our people for too long. Fourteen years of being in government doing absolutely nothing for Floridians while he has been using the power of his seat for his own self-gain. And so many people ask, ‘Debbie, what does that mean?’ Well, ‘my people’ is every single senior who has worked their entire life to pay into their benefits so that they can retire with dignity. … Rick Scott, don’t mess with my people. When you write a plan to eliminate Medicare and Social Security, don’t mess with my people.”
A day earlier, about eight miles to the south but still in Tampa, Scott himself appeared at a popular early voting location site, where he was greeted by dozens of supporters and a slew of Hillsborough Republicans who all began chanting “Rick Scott! Rick Scott! Rick Scott!” as he approached a group of reporters awaiting his arrival.
“My opponent’s silly. She’s a silly socialist, she’s not serious about anything. She lies about everything,” Scott said when asked about his campaign against Mucarsel-Powell.
The “Debbie is a socialist” line has been a reoccurring mantra used by Team Scott to taint Mucarsel-Powell with the epithet that has been proven deadly against Democrats in elections in recent years, particularly in South Florida — home to so many who have immigrated from countries with left-wing dictators.
Political refugee
Mucarsel-Powell, born and raised in Ecuador before coming to the United States as a teenager, addressed the labelling in an ad her campaign released in early September, in which she discussed fleeing life under a dictatorship.
As the campaign moved into its final week, her campaign fought back by launching two television ads hitting Scott’s record on property insurance as the state’s governor and his stance on abortion rights.
Meanwhile, another poll showed her getting closer to Scott – but that’s certainly no guarantee she will catch the incumbent from Naples, who, despite never having won by more than 1.2 percentage points in his previous three statewide elections, is now on the precipice of being elected for another six-year term.
A prohibitive underdog, Mucarsel-Powell, a former one-term member of Congress representing South Miami-Dade and the Florida Keys from 2019-201, has impressed political analysts for keeping the contest competitive, despite not attracting much financial help from outside sources, seemingly required for a candidate who doesn’t have nearly the same name recognition as her GOP opponent.
“I think that she has done an excellent job with her campaign,” said University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett. “She has not had the resources that Rick Scott has. She’s not getting the national money. Having said that, she has been able to raise a decent amount, and I think that the issues that she’s talked about have helped her keep the race close.”
Tara Newsom, a professor at St. Petersburg College, said the public is responding to Mucarsel-Powell because “most voters are tired of politics as usual.”
“They are not buying the political rhetoric that Grandpa Scott is putting on his commercials, especially after he immediately voted against IVF and then had these IVF commercials. And she’s speaking about inflation. She’s speaking about climate change. All these things that we’re living through in the state of Florida.
“She’s speaking not just about reproductive rights, because listen, let’s not be so narrow when we talk about enshrining the rights to reproductive freedom. Many people, men and women are voting in favor of that constitutional amendment because they also understand that it means bodily autonomy, and she’s hitting it. And there’s nothing that Rick Scott can do to draw people’s attention from the realities of where he stands on those issues.”
Abortion politics
The issue of abortion rights has been a potent one for Democrats nationally since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal right for a woman to have an abortion in 2022’s Dobbs decision, and Mucarsel-Powell has leaned on that heavily since the beginning of her campaign against Scott, who she says supports a “national ban on abortions.”
The Scott camp insists he opposes a national abortion ban and supports a 15 week ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and to preserve the life of the patient — somewhat similar to the Florida 2022 law that became obsolete after the Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis went a step further in 2023 to pass the existing six-week law, which went into effect in May. However, Scott has also said that if governor, he would have signed the six-week abortion ban.
She’s now attacking his record on property insurance and climate change as governor, positions underscored by damage to much of the state during hurricanes Helene and Milton.
Perhaps the biggest development in the race was Scott’s decision not to debate Mucarsel-Powell on statewide television — and in doing so depriving the Florida electorate of a chance to compare the two top Senate candidates live on stage together for the first time since the mid ’90s.
“I always think that debates are very good,” said Dr. Susan MacManus, professor emerita at the University of South Florida. “It’s a disservice to the public when they don’t have them. It’s one of the few ways that people can assess candidates unfiltered.”
In a big state like Florida, where it can get expensive to advertise in 10 major media markets, there’s no greater exposure for a candidate than a televised statewide debate, which is perhaps why Scott went out of his way to prevent one from happening, MacManus said.
“The one thing that has surprised me is Scott really hasn’t pulled away, and Mucarsel-Powell snuck around,” said University of North Florida political science professor Michael Binder.
“I’m not saying that she’s going to win, or that she even really has a good chance of winning. But just the fact that it seems like that she’s in the ballpark, that’s kind of surprising to me for the campaign that — she didn’t have a ton of name recognition before this started. I’m not even sure the name recognition that she has right now.”
In his brief exchange with reporters in South Tampa last weekend, Scott attributed his lack of his agreeing to debate Mucarsel-Powell to his travels around the state both before and after hurricanes Helene and Milton hit over the past month — a ritual that historically has been a province of the governor but something Scott has continued to do as a U.S. senator.
Polling
And while some polls show Mucarsel-Powell within the margin for error with Scott, some pollsters predict the Naples Republican will coast to re-election on Tuesday.
Florida GOP pollster Ryan Tyson published a memo last week predicting the Republicans will win an “R +11%” electorate in November, and thus he expects Scott to win by 12% percentage points, by far the most bullish survey for Scott this year.
There is the reality that as the Democrats fight perhaps an ultimately losing battle to retain control of the U.S. Senate this year, national money was prioritized for those races deemed winnable, and Florida, following the results of the 2022 election, was never considered a serious play for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.
That year, Republican Marco Rubio defeated Democratic challenger Val Demings by 16 percentage points, even after Demings raised tens of millions of dollars more than he did. This time, Scott has outraised Mucarsel-Powell, bringing in just short of $45 million including $20 million out of his own pocket. Mucarsel-Powell has raised $31.4 million (as of Oct. 16).
“I think that the challenge for Mucarsel-Powell is that the Democratic Party has not invested as many resources in the state as they might have in the past, primarily because it has been trending Republican — and also because, just to be as blunt as possible, Florida’s an expensive state to run in,” said Kevin Wagner, a political science professor at Florida Atlantic University.
“And so, if you’re a political party you have to make choices about where to spend your resources, and are you going to spend it in a very expensive state that’s been trending away from you or are you going to put it in states that appear to be a little bit closer? And I think that’s been the challenge for Mucarsel-Powell.”
“I just don’t think that the state has proven itself,” said former Florida Democratic National Committee member Thomas Kennedy, who left the party a year ago to become an NPA voter.
“If you’re a cold-minded Democratic operative, you look at a state like Florida and you say, ‘Look, there’s obviously something going on with the state party there and I’m going to put my money somewhere else.’ And that’s what they’re doing.
“Whether we like it in Florida or not, they’re investing in other states. I mean, you look at the swing state map. Florida is not a factor. Florida is not in play. They might say it’s in play here for the media and for the press hits, but to the people who are putting up the money – money talks, bullsh*t walks. It’s not in play. That’s the reality.”
‘Sunshine tour’
Meanwhile, Scott crisscrossed the state well before the hurricanes blasted into Florida. His campaign announced on July 2 that his “Sunshine Tour” had visited Indian River County, marking off all 67 counties in which he has appeared during his run for re-election.
On his campaign website, the curious can still find his “12-point plan to rescue America,” which provided Mucarsel-Powell and the Democrats considerable fodder when originally published in 2022 for its promise to “sunset” all federal programs every five years, including Social Security and Medicare (a stance he revoked when that criticism came not just from President Joe Biden but also Republicans like Mitch McConnell).
Scott certainly hasn’t run any part of his campaign with the fear that he was ever going to lose to a Democrat in a state that now has more than 1 million registered Republican voters.
Take for instance, his decision to appear this week on far-right-wing activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer’s podcast. Presumably, in a tight race a vulnerable GOP incumbent wouldn’t appear on a show with someone labelled as making racist comments by none other than Georgia U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And he still intends to make a play for the Republican Senate leader position, which will become vacant next month when Mitch McConnell steps away.
“One has to ask if he is really positioning himself in these hurricane-prone areas because he’s running for U.S. Senate or is he doing it because he wants to create a national TV spot as he tries to maneuver his way into the majority leader’s seat,” asks Newsom.
Despite what some would label his anti-charisma, Scott has frequently outworked his opponents, a factor that now sees him on the precipice of becoming a distinguished figure in Florida political history if he wins re-election and stays around for the duration of another six-year term.
By the end of that term, Scott would have served for 20 years as either governor or senator of the nation’s third largest state, incumbencies comparable to those of Democrats like Bob Graham and Lawton Chiles, who both served multiple terms in those offices.
“Rick Scott has been a central figure in Florida politics for a long time and, for many younger Floridians, he’s probably been one of the more prominent members of the political leadership in Florida for most of their political life,” said Wagner.
“You’re talking about people who have gotten into office and stayed in office, and so despite the fact that he’s never been extremely popular and he’s had a number of extremely close races, at least to date, he’s won, and in Florida he won when it was a much different state politically where it was very competitive,” said Jewett.
“So, the fact that he was able to win in a very competitive state suggests that he has figured out a sort of political formula that works for him, right? He knows how to win those elections. With issues to push, how to mobilize his voters and win those elections. And so, yeah, just from a neutral — not whether you like him or don’t like him, but just from a neutral political science analysis — if he wins this Senate race it will be 20 years of public office in statewide Florida, is pretty impressive.”