If you missed our presidential write-up for the Sunshine State, I’ll start with the short premise: the state is so big, with so many factors and interests and demographics pushing against each other, that it generates a lot of noise. Ultimately, this noise tends to mask the fact that the state has trended rightward over the last 20 years. So, even when polls are mixed and favorable conditions appear to exist for Democrats, you should be wary of their chances.

This holds true in this year’s Senate election as well, where incumbent Republican Rick Scott is being challenged by former Representative Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. Mucarsel-Powell briefly served in Congress, defeating a Republican incumbent in a Florida Keys/South Miami-based swing district back in the blue wave of 2018, only to be defeated two years later. If a one-term (and losing) member of Congress seems like a relatively meager nominee in a state as large as Florida, you’re not wrong – but it also discounts a couple things Mucarsel-Powell brings to the table.

For one, Mucarsel-Powell didn’t face a particularly competitive primary, and she was the clear frontrunner in the field. This speaks more to the depth of the Florida Democratic bench than it does her own ability to campaign, as Mucarsel-Powell first came into politics after a substantive career in the nonprofit sector and at Florida International University, which helped her win in the swingy 26th district. Mucarsel-Powell is also Latina – she’s actually the first member of Congress born in South America – and Latinos make up about a quarter of the state’s population. Predominantly, Florida’s Latino population is not Mexican Americans, but rather those with Cuban, Puerto Rican, and South American heritage. Because Republicans have made gains with many of these different populations, this could matter. Murcarsel-Powell isn’t just the first Latina nominated by Democrats for statewide office in Florida – she’s the first Democratic Latino candidate for Florida governor or senator in the 21st century. It’s plausible, if increasingly unlikely, that this may help her stem Republican gains with the demographic, especially against Rick Scott.

There’s reason to think that Rick Scott is not a particularly strong candidate either. He may be one of the luckiest Republicans in Florida state history, riding narrow margins of victory (in Republican-leaning years, mind you!) to the governor’s mansion in both 2010 and 2014. This is something that gave a lot of people – including us – pause in 2018, when Scott ran for the Senate against incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. How could it be that in a clear Democratic-leaning cycle Scott would outperform the margin? Well, he did, and against a pretty innocuous incumbent to boot. This is probably a consequence of a number of things: Nelson kind of took the race for granted, was substantially outspent about 3-1, and Florida simply continued moving rightward (Ron DeSantis also won the governorship that year).

It’s plausible that some of Scott’s vulnerabilities will come back to bite him in 2024, however. For one, we don’t expect him to benefit from a substantial incumbency advantage – in part, because Florida is a large state, where this advantage is reduced. Also, Scott is actually not particularly popular in the state, where his favorability (at least in June) was underwater. He went public with a plan to sunset all federal legislation (which some pragmatically took to mean Social Security and Medicare) every five years, requiring reauthorization so that any law “worth keeping” will be passed again. The attack ad, catered to Florida’s older population, writes itself. Statewide, Republicans are vulnerable on issues like climate change (which have increased costs, particularly of home ownership, in the state); and, more notably, abortion. While an abortion-related referendum will be on the ballot in Florida, there’s little clear evidence of this translating into an electoral advantage for Democrats running concurrently. We expect, in a national election where abortion will be front and center, that this may nevertheless juice depressed Democratic turnout in the Sunshine State.

However, Scott continues to dominate in terms of money raised and money spent. We’re pretty wary of any claim that fundraising advantages have a meaningful effect at this point in the race, especially in nationalized Senate elections, as the evidence shows that they really don’t. But it’s not for nothing that Scott has more resources in a large, expensive state to run in. He is, after all, the wealthiest member of the Senate.

Some polls have been close, perhaps indicating some momentum for Mucarsel-Powell, but we’re skeptical that this is particularly meaningful when she has yet to lead in a single poll against Scott. Scott has money, name recognition, and a Republican-leaning electorate to buoy him. Here’s how we’d put the lid on this race: if Mucarsel-Powell couldn’t hold on to her swing district in 2020 – all things considered, a pretty Democratic-leaning year – her chances of winning in Florida statewide in a less-Democratic leaning year, when the state has become meaningfully more Republican, are slim.