Election 2024: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell seeks to unseat Rick Scott in U.S. Senate

TAMPA, Fla. - U.S. Senator Rick Scott is locked in a dead heat with Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to keep his U.S. Senate seat.

Emerson College Polling shows the two are neck and neck in the race to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate.

Who is Rick Scott?

Scott, a Republican, was elected to the Senate in 2018 and is serving his first term representing the state of Florida.

The former head of the largest for-profit hospital system in America served two terms as Florida’s governor from 2011 to 2019.

Without having any political experience, Scott defeated Democrat Alex Sink in the 2010 election when Republican-turned-Independent incumbent Governor Charlie Crist chose not to run for a second term because he ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the Senate.

In 2014, Scott was re-elected as the governor, beating Crist who decided to run as a Democrat.

Four years later he narrowly defeated incumbent Senator Bill Nelson in the closest Senate race in Florida’s history.

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Scott, a businessman by trade, co-founded Columbia Hospital Corporation, which later merged with HCA (Hospital Corporation of America).

He was forced to resign after Columbia/HCA came under investigation for fraud to Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health programs. Columbia/HCA ended up paying nearly $2 billion in fines though Scott was not charged with any crimes.

According to Scott’s online senate biography, the unemployment rate dropped from 11 percent to 3.3 percent, while he was governor.

He cut taxes and funding for some government programs to try to lower the state’s debt.

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Though Scott initially opposed plans to expand Medicaid in Florida under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he later supported a three-year trial expansion, which was ultimately shot down by the Republican-led legislature in 2015.

A month after the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, Scott signed a bill to raise the minimum age to purchase guns to 21 and established a three-day waiting period to buy a gun.

As a senator, Scott tried unsuccessfully to replace Senator Mitch McConnell as the Senate Republican leader.

Who is Debbie Mucarsel-Powell

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat from Miami, is hoping to unseat Scott in November.

She served in the House of Representatives from 2019 to 2021. She lost her reelection bid in 2020 to U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez.

Mucarsel-Powell — who ran a campaign for the past year focused on abortion rights, gun safety and Latin American policy — won the August primary to run against Scott.

In a statement, the former Miami congresswoman said that the campaign since day one has focused on "protecting our freedoms," whether that involves abortion rights, affordability, education or gun safety.

According to an online biography, while in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell focused on foreign affairs, education, healthcare policy, environmental sustainability, and gun violence prevention.

She sat on the judiciary subcommittee on crime, terrorism & homeland security and served as vice-chair of the gun violence prevention task force, where she led efforts to pass the first gun safety legislation in 25 years.

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In 2021, Congresswoman Mucarsel-Powell joined GIFFORDS as a senior advisor.

In 2022, she led efforts to launch the organization’s first ever bilingual, state-based political program, GIFFORDS Florida, which has played a crucial role in electing gun safety champions up and down the ballot across the Sunshine State.

Mucasel-Powell was the first South American-born immigrant ever elected to Congress.

She immigrated to the United States from Ecuador when she was 14 with her mother and three sisters. Ten years later, her father was shot to death outside his home in Ecuador, which led her to advocate for gun reform.

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