Rick Scott says Florida Hispanics will choose him over a Latina. He may be right

All day every day, America’s wealthiest senator is beaming himself onto television screens around the state, telling Hispanic voters through garbled Spanish that he, Rick Scott, is fighting to protect their freedom.

In South Florida alone, Scott’s reelection campaign has aired his commercials roughly 300 times over the last calendar month. Between newscasts and soccer matches, he appears on Telemundo and Univision to warn of “the evils of communism” and “radical socialist” teachers.

The ads, set to run for another two weeks, are part of a multi-million dollar strategy to persuade Hispanic voters to side with the Republican former governor over his likely Latina opponent Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former congresswoman who became the first South American U.S. representative in 2019.

READ MORE: Who will take on Rick Scott in Senate election, and what local U.S. House races look like

For a politician that has a history of winning races by ultra-narrow margins, a victory among Florida Hispanics could prove vital for Scott, who’s seeking a second term in Washington after defeating former U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson six years ago by just 10,000 votes. Such a win could also pull Florida further out of reach for Democrats, who have struggled in recent years to win over a Hispanic electorate that has increasingly sided with Republicans.

A confident Scott told the Miami Herald he’s “going to win Hispanic voters” outright when all votes are tallied this November.

“The thing about Hispanic voters is they have a faith in God, they want jobs, they want a good education, they want to live in a safe community,” he said. “They like that someone cares about democracy. A lot of them are here because it ends up being socialist where they came from. They’re normal American voters who want to elect people who care about the issues they care about.”

In a statement, Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign accused Scott of courting Latino voters “for his own political gain.”

“Rick Scott knows that Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is a champion for the Latino community, so like always, he’s throwing money at the problem,” Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign manager Ben Waldon said. “That’s why he’s spending millions of dollars on voters that won’t support him.”

Advantages and Opportunities

Scott’s ad campaign highlights several advantages that he and Republicans hold over Democrats when it comes to Florida’s Hispanic voters, who lean more conservative than in other states: Scott has more money, is better known and happy to red-bait his opponents, a tactic that has proven effective in South Florida.

“He understands very well what Hispanics care about,” said Jaime Florez, the Hispanic communications director for the Republican National Committee and a former aide to Scott. “He shares the same values and principles that we Hispanics really fight for: freedom, democracy, faith, family, opportunities.”

READ MORE: This could be a big deal in November. Here’s what’s driving Hispanic voters to the right

On the surface, the odds would appear to be stacked against Scott, a wealthy former healthcare executive and Florida transplant who speaks broken Spanish. Mucarsel-Powell, born in Ecuador, has spent decades enmeshed in South Florida’s Hispanic communities. She speaks Spanish fluently and has made Spanish-language media appearances a cornerstone of her Senate campaign.

But it’s not as much of a stretch as it would have been even a few years ago. Former President Donald Trump drastically improved his margins among Florida Hispanics between his 2016 presidential bid and 2020 reelection campaign. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who lost the Latino vote by 10 percentage points in 2018, went on to carry the Hispanic vote by 18 points in his reelection bid two years ago.

Early polling shows Scott running ahead of Mucarsel-Powell among Hispanic voters. One survey from USA Today and Ipsos released last month found Scott running ahead of his likely Democratic opponent among Latinos by 10 percentage points. Another poll from Emerson College showed a closer race between the two candidates, though Scott held a narrow lead.

Scott has been a key player in Florida politics for well over a decade and has a vast personal fortune that he has used to fund his campaigns. Since October, Scott has poured nearly $3 million of his own money into his Senate reelection, according to federal filings — enough to foot the bill for the senator’s multi-million-dollar TV ad campaign.

He’s also spent years trying to win over Hispanic voters. As governor, he tapped the Cuban-American Carlos Lopez-Cantera to serve as his lieutenant governor, aggressively courted Democratic-leaning Puerto Ricans by opening relief centers in Florida after Hurricane Maria, and visited the storm-ravaged island eight times. He even took Spanish lessons.

Florez, who worked on Scott’s 2014 gubernatorial reelection and 2018 Senate campaign, recalled how he used to translate phrases for Scott to use in Spanish. He acknowledged that Scott “doesn’t speak like a native,” but said that people appreciate that he made the effort to learn.

“Like my mother says: he doesn’t speak very well, but he tries,” Florez said.

The long game

Florez said Scott, a Midwesterner who emerged in Florida politics when he ran for governor in 2010, “didn’t know the Hispanic community” when he first hit the campaign trail.

“He’s an outsider,” Florez said. “But as soon as he started to understand the community, he started to like the Hispanic community. He wanted to win them over.”

Kevin Cabrera, a Republican Miami-Dade County commissioner, said that Scott’s longtime presence in Florida politics and decade-long outreach to the state’s Hispanic community has made him a known quantity unlike Mucarsel-Powell, who is little known among most Florida voters, according to recent polls.

“I think people give him an ‘A’ for effort,” said Cabrera, who also served as the Florida state director for former President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. “He’s put in the time, he’s put in the effort and I think people recognize it.”

Scott said he sees a chance for Republicans to capture Miami-Dade County in November, just as Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio did in 2022. The county, where most voters are Hispanic, swung to the right two years ago to deliver both DeSantis and Rubio decisive victories.

“I’m gonna work my butt off,” Scott told the Herald. “We’re going to make sure Hispanics know exactly what I believe in.”