BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) – Florida Democrats made bold claims last week about their chances in a state that has grown steadily more conservative in recent years. But so far, they haven’t connected their words to what kind of money will be won there.
“Florida is in the game,” declared Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former representative from Miami, as she kicked off a bus tour advocating for women’s reproductive rights in Boynton Beach. Mucarsel-Powell is the Florida Democratic pick to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Rick Scott for one of a handful of Senate seats the GOP is up for this election season.
Republicans have outspent Democrats in Florida’s U.S. Senate race by a roughly 4-1 margin through Sept. 11, $12.7 million to $3.2 million, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks advertising spending by political campaigns and their surrogates. Based on the advertising spots currently reserved through the parliamentary elections, the margin is expected to increase.
The dynamics of the Senate race mirror what has happened in the presidential race in a state hotly contested by top candidates from both parties. Vice President Kamala Harris did not attend the opening bus tour and has not been to Florida as a candidate since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee in the race against former Republican President Donald Trump.
Republicans’ huge spending advantage may help explain why Scott scoffs at Democrats’ claims about Florida’s competitiveness.
“They are so far from where the voters of Florida believe they have no chance of winning Florida,” he said in an interview last week. “They have no chance to beat Trump and they have no chance to beat me.”
Mucarsel-Powell says her side is more in touch with voters on issues like reproductive rights. He says ballot measures on both abortion rights and marijuana legalization will help Democrats vote. He also said the switch from Biden to Harris gave Florida Democrats new momentum.
“This is a momentum that has been building for some time, and his announcement was like the tip of the iceberg in the momentum and energy that has been building here in the state of Florida,” Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview.
A national AP-NORC poll in July found that about eight in 10 Democrats said they were satisfied with Harris as their party’s presidential nominee, while in March four in 10 Democrats said they were satisfied with Biden as the nominee.
But Mucarsel-Powell’s task remains enormous. Although some polls show Scott with a solid lead in the Senate race, national Democrats have yet to invest heavily in Florida’s expensive media market. Harris, who has proven to be a prolific fundraiser since becoming the Democratic nominee, recently allocated $25 million of his own campaign funds to help Democrats in November — and only $10 million of those funds went to U.S. Senate candidates. Harris’ campaign did not respond to questions about how those funds were distributed.
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it spent money on staff and digital advertising for the race, but did not specify how much. In a statement, they did not address the spending going forward, but said, “Scott’s unpopularity, combined with the strength of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign, makes Florida one of the best offensive opportunities for Senate Democrats.”
Scott, who is eyeing the Senate leadership if he wins, said he hopes for a greater effort from national Democrats.
“I hope they spend a lot of money and waste it because they have no chance of winning the Senate in Florida,” he said.
Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried said national Democrats showed their support by starting their bus tour in Florida and sending campaign representatives there to support Democratic candidates. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has a strong enough position in her own re-election bid to work for other Democrats around the country, was one of several Democrats who joined Mucarsel-Powell at the start of the bus tour.
“They could have started anywhere else in the country. They started here in Palm Beach County, in Donald Trump’s backyard,” Fried said. “It shows how important Florida is and that they’re going to continue to watch what’s going on on the field, send replacements here and make sure we’re in the game in November.”
About 150 people participated in the bus trip event.
Fried acknowledged that Democrats have spent more on advertising in Florida, but he said they are putting their energy into grassroots campaigning. He said 40,000 new volunteers signed up after Harris entered the race and went out of his way to knock on doors and reach Florida voters by phone.
This year’s Florida ballot looks different than what voters saw two years ago, when U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Gov. Ron DeSantis led Florida to the top of the ticket. The governor had hoped to build national visibility from his emphatic 19-point victory, but was unable to loosen Trump’s grip on the Republican Party nationally.
Trump, who now lives in Florida, beat Biden in Florida by 3.3 percentage points in 2020, further diminishing its status as a swing state.
Brian Ballard, a Republican political strategist who was a top fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, said the Democrats’ lack of spending makes it difficult to introduce Mucarsel-Powell to people across the state who don’t recognize her — as opposed to the other way around. For Scott, who was governor of Florida from 2010 to 2018 and has since served in the Senate.
A lack of national party spending, Ballard said, “is usually a sign of a losing campaign.”
“Florida is not in the game,” Ballard said. “I hope the Democrats commit and spend big in Florida on the presidential race. It’s not going to move the needle at all. If he’s counting on Democrats to spend beyond the ticket, he’s counting on fool’s gold.”
Florida’s race hasn’t drawn much attention from national Democrats, who are trying to hold on to far more Senate seats than Republicans this year. Instead, they have focused much of their energy and resources on defending the seats they already hold, including the red states of Ohio and Montana. Still, Florida’s U.S. Senate race was close in late July, just before Florida’s Senate primary, according to a poll of Florida voters by the University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab.
Scott said in an interview that he is not “taking a risk” by treating his own race lightly. Still, he has spent at least some of his time campaigning for other Republicans, including a trip across state lines to the battleground state of Georgia last week for a town hall in Braselton, northeast of Atlanta.
“This is a team sport,” Scott said of his efforts on behalf of other GOP candidates.
Tiffany Lanier, 36, took part in a bus tour Tuesday morning in Boynton Beach. Lanier, a public speaker for Lake Worth Civic Impact, said that while Biden ran on a similar platform to Harris, he believes Harris’ position and emphasis on abortion rights will really excite and motivate people to vote.
“I think it was beyond my wildest dreams that Florida would be in the game this November,” Lanier said. – I know that we are very strict in the elections, but I see that an energetic change is happening. And so, I see a lot of potential here.”
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Chief Election Analyst Chad Day contributed to this report.
