Former Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell — who is running to unseat U.S. Sen. Rick Scott — is certainly gaining momentum as the days tick off to the Nov. 5 election. She’s on a 75-city tour across the state of Florida — one stop for every time Rick Scott pled the fifth after overseeing one of the largest Medicare frauds in the history of this country — and within “striking distance” in recent polls.
Stopping in Tampa today, she out-raised the Republican millionaire in the last quarter by $1.7 million.
And On Wednesday, Mucarsel-Powell announced a new campaign video ad called “Disaster” and timed perfectly to echo the catastrophe across parts of Florida and the Southeast due to Hurricane Helene earlier this week. It’s part of a seven-figure media buy across the state aiming to hold Scott accountable for failing to protect Floridians from increased climate risks and skyrocketing property insurance rates.
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“Another hurricane, more devastation, and Rick Scott is only making it worse. Scott took 3 million from insurance companies and let them raise rates and deny claims. He even voted against billions in disaster relief funds,” Mucarsel-Powell says in the 30-second spot. “Rick Scott sold us out, and now your property insurance bill is four times the national average.It has to stop.”
“I approve this message because natural disasters are bad enough without Rick Scott making it worse.“
Ladra loves a creative disclaimer.
It follows a Spanish-language ad, “The Important Things,” highlighting Mucarsel-Powell’s values and holding Rick Scott accountable for his extreme plans to raise taxes on middle class families, end Social Security and Medicare as we know them, and take away women’s fundamental rights, which has been a cornerstone of her campaign. In June, she launched an ad called “Freedom” about her roots and how her family fled a dictatorship in Ecuador when she was a child.
Read related: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell lobs ‘Freedom’ video ad vs Rick Scott in Copa América
Her team has also announced that Mucarsel-Powell had accepted invitations to three televised debates in Tampa (WFLA), Jacksonville (WJXT) and West Palm Beach (WPBF), which has traditional moderated statewide gubernatorial and senate debates.
Why not Miami? The campaign is trying to secure a Spanish-language debate “to address the issues important to the Latino community in Florida and meet as many voters as possible where they are,” a campaign spokesperson said. That’s likely to be here. If Scott has the guts.
“For the last 14 years, extremist Rick Scott has tried to rob women of their freedoms, seniors of their Social Security and Medicare, and working families of opportunities to get ahead,” Mucarsel-Powell said in a statement basically daring him to debate.
“It’s past time that he answers to the Floridians who continue to suffer under an affordability crisis he created, all while he wrote the plan to raise taxes on the middle class and made hundreds of millions of dollars overseeing the largest Medicare fraud our country has ever seen. I hope Rick Scott has the courage to meet me on the debate stage to have this important conversation in English and in Spanish.”
Scott has still refused to answer any calls for a debate.
Mucarsel-Powell launched her statewide tour in Miami last month at a rally with labor activists and volunteers alongside Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who won re-election outright in the first round Aug. 20. On Tuesday, she was joined by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder at the 44th stop of the tour in Miami.
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“I’m proud to be in Florida to support Debbie Mucarsel-Powell,” Holder said in a statement. “This election is a choice between a candidate who is focused on the issues that matter most to Floridians — protecting the rights of the people and key programs that support them like Social Security and Medicare, and strengthening the middle class — and a politician who time again has sold out Floridians for his own gain.
“Rick Scott even voted against protecting access to IVF, supported a national abortion ban, and wrote the plan to cut Social Security and Medicare This election is an opportunity to turn the page on Rick Scott’s harmful, unpopular policies, and start a new chapter by electing a leader like Debbie, who will always put Floridians first and pursue policies that reflect the will of the people.”
The former congresswoman is also within a point of the incumbent senator in the latest survey results by the Florida-based Victory Insights, a Republican pollster that also finds Donald Trump leading Democrat Kamala Harris by just 2 percentage points. Basically, putting Florida, a red state, in play.
The poll shows the candidates are head-to-head, with almost 12% of the voters still undecided.
Scott is still seen as the frontrunner. The incumbent is the wealthiest member of the senate with an estimated net worth of $100 million, so he can always pour dollars into his campaign. But Mucarsel-Powell has outraised the senator in every quarterly campaign finance report since she entered the race — which could be a sign of voter support.
During the second quarter of 2024, Mucarsel-Powell reported about $4.8 million in contributions, while Scott only reported $3.1 million.
Later this month, on Oct. 21, Mucarsel-Powell will have a fundraiser in Coral Gables as she keeps rolling. The election is Nov. 5 but people are already voting on absentee or vote-by-mail ballots that arrived in their homes this week.
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