Election 2024: Rick Scott, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell square off over US Senate seat

Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and the Democratic challenger for his seat, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, wasted no time going on the attack after their comfortable primary wins.

At stake is a seat that could decide which party controls the chamber, with the power to approve or block appointments to the judicial branch and the next administration.

Each has harshly criticized the other on perceived vulnerabilities heading to the Nov. 5 election. Scott slammed Mucarsel-Powell as an “open-border socialist” while Mucarsel-Powell called Scott an “extremist” who would put social safety net programs at risk and push for a federal abortion ban.

“The most radical socialist ticket of my lifetime – Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell – seeks to fundamentally destroy the promise of freedom in America for generations to come,” Scott said the night of the Aug. 20 primary.

Mucarsel-Powell sees the stakes equally as high, with abortion rights on the line as well as the erosion of democracy, citing Scott’s suggesting that illegal immigrants will vote en masse if Democrats win in November and his suggestion during the 2018 election recount he won that votes were being “found” for his then-opponent, Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

Scott is "extreme, he’s dangerous, he’s done nothing to help us to reduce costs for families,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview with the USA TODAY Network – Florida. “People here are tired of the extreme politics and he represents that. He is one of the most extreme politicians. He’s the poster child for extremism, I would say, in the Senate.”

Scott, 71, is a former hospital company executive who rode a tea party wave of conservative enthusiasm in 2010 and served as Florida governor from 2011 to 2019 before winning his U.S. Senate seat.

Mucarsel-Powell, 53, was born in Ecuador and emigrated to the U.S. when she was 14, later becoming an administrator at Florida International University. She lost a state Senate race in 2016 before winning a U.S. House seat in 2018. But she served just one term before being defeated by U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Miami.

Primary coverage: Rick Scott, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell win, set up US Senate showdown

Immigration, abortion, judiciary have been top issues

The main point of attacks from Scott on Mucarsel-Powell have been over illegal immigration. His campaign recently castigated her for a 2019 vote on a bill that would have granted legal status to some undocumented immigrants. The bill, though, also received 34 votes from Republicans, including Miami U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart.

Mucarsel-Powell’s “strong support of amnesty and allowing illegal aliens to vote in our federal elections puts her in good company with Joe Biden, the Socialist Squad, and every other radical Democrat in Washington,” Scott spokesman Will Hampson said.

“As Biden and (Senate Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer continue to work together to fight for amnesty and voting rights for illegals, Florida voters need to decide if they want an open-border socialist representing them in Washington who would put illegals before the people of Florida.”

In the early days of the general election campaign, Mucarsel-Powell has consistently highlighted Scott’s approval of Florida’s six-week ban on abortion and criticized him for voting against a bill to protect in vitro fertilization procedures.

Scott, though, has said that while he would have signed the six-week ban, he prefers the state’s previous 15-week ban because it better reflects the consensus around the state. But he is opposed to Amendment 4, which would overturn the six-week ban and install a right to an abortion in the state constitution.

Scott has also said he wants to protect in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatments and has noted the issue is personal for him: His youngest daughter has undergone such treatments.

Yet Mucarsel-Powell has also emphasized the importance of the Senate seat in confirming judges to underline the stakes of the abortion debate in the race.

The conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, eliminating a federal right to an abortion and sending the issue to the states. The Alabama Supreme Court decision earlier this year that stored embryos used in IVF procedures have the same protections as children is what set off fears of restrictions on the treatments.

“We are where we are because of those Supreme Court justices that were confirmed under Donald Trump,” Mucarsel-Powell said.

Inflation, economic issues also writ large this election

The candidates have also sparred over inflation and the cost of living. Scott points to the large spending bills passed under President Joe Biden as the main cause of rampant inflation, which rose to levels not seen since the early 1980s, boosting the costs of necessities like groceries and gas.

Mucarsel-Powell says Scott hasn’t done anything to alleviate the situation and, in the case of rising property insurance, helped contribute to it as governor.

“What has he done for Floridians?” Mucarsel-Powell said. “People can’t pay their rent. They can’t pay their property insurance rates. A lot of that began under Rick Scott.”

In turn, Scott has highlighted a plan floated by Vice President Kamala Harris, newly raised to the top of the Democratic ticket, to set price controls for groceries, likening them to socialist policies of the former USSR and modern-day Venezuela.

“Kamala Harris, who has NO IDEA what it means to run a business, wants to enact soviet-style federal price controls. That should terrify every single American,” Scott posted on X after the plans were released.

The criticism dovetails with Scott’s assertion that Mucarsel-Powell is a socialist, an explosive charge in South Florida, home to a large diaspora of Cubans, Venezuelans and others who fled communist and socialist regimes.

Mucarsel denies the "socialist" charge, at the same time likening Scott’s refusal to say whether he’d accept the November election results to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s declaration that he won the recent election there, despite evidence he lost.

“He’s lying; its false; its disinformation,” Mucarsel-Powell said in response. “It’s the same attack that Republicans use all over the country and particularly here in South Florida to confuse people like my mom, my family, who had to flee a dictatorship.”

Gray Rohrer is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at grohrer@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @GrayRohrer.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Rick Scott, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell square off over US Senate seat