Democrats Chase an Upset in Florida
Could Debbie Mucarsel-Powell surprise Rick Scott?
The chances that Democrats hold the U.S. Senate continue to drop. Fresh high-quality polling out of Montana suggests that Jon Tester is in rough shape, trailing GOP challenger Tim Sheehy by 8 points. If Tester loses, that’s the ballgame for Democrats—unless they can go on offense elsewhere. The Florida race between former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and incumbent Sen. Rick Scott might just be that longshot opportunity to win a 51st seat.
Though the Sunshine State has slipped away from Democrats in recent cycles, there is still hope that Mucarsel-Powell could score an upset. A recent Morning Consult poll has Scott up by 5, while Emerson found him leading by just a point. Not great numbers for Democrats, but hardly worse than the latest from out west.
Furthermore, after the PR disaster of his 11-point “rescue plan” and a failed bid to oust Mitch McConnell, Rick Scott remains quite unpopular. An August Suffolk/USA Today poll placed his net favorable rating at -14. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio (+7), Ron DeSantis (+9), and Donald Trump (+2) all received positive ratings. This suggests Mucarsel-Powell has an opening to outrun the top of the ticket.
Doing so, however, will require reversing some rough trends with the state’s large Hispanic population. The chart below compares Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden across Florida’s six political regions.
Despite a worse statewide margin, Biden actually improved in several areas, most notably around Duval County. The “blue team” should hope for continued Democratic growth there, especially in Jacksonville, which elected a Democratic mayor in a 2023 upset.
But Biden absolutely tanked with Hispanic voters—a trend that accelerated in 2022. Mucarsel-Powell has no shot if she cannot significantly improve with Cuban Americans in Miami and Puerto Ricans along the I-4 corridor. Her campaign appears to recognize the importance of winning back these voters: she has focused on Spanish-language ads and recently launched campaigns on WhatsApp, a messaging platform favored by many Latinos. She is also leaning into the pending abortion amendment, tying Scott to his approval of Florida’s six-week ban.
Will it be enough to win? Unlikely. This is still a huge lift for Democrats, particularly as Donald Trump is expected to exceed his 2020 margin in Florida. Mucarsel-Powell will have to outperform Harris and win over Hispanic voters increasingly affiliated with Republicans. But with their odds in Montana worsening and plenty of cash to burn, Democrats can afford to chase an upset in Florida.
it’s really misleading to refer to the Spanish-speaking people around Miami as just “Latinos“. Most of them are Cubans or Venezuelans’s who have direct experience of socialist governments that didn’t work. consequently, they react strongly to anything that reminds them of socialism, and are thus easily manipulated by Trump‘s propaganda, They will be very differently motivated than the Mexicans and central Americans who make up the majority of the rest of the US Hispanic population.
I'm hardly an expert, but have read on a few occasions, registered FL Reps now outnumber registered FL Dems, by 1 million voters. If that is accurate, it is hard to see, how Tim Scott loses.