Sen. Rick Scott Homes in on Florida’s Large Hispanic Vote

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who has won three statewide elections by narrow margins, is homing in on Florida’s roughly 25% Hispanic population to help him get reelected in 2024.

The way it works in Florida, “we have Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Nicaraguans — they’re all different communities but it’s a good melting pot, but I reach out to each one of them and I do things with every group,” Scott told The Hill.

“I never stopped talking to them.”

The Hispanic vote is already on the Democrat playbook, as Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., who was born in Ecuador, is the primary frontrunner in their attempt to flip one of Florida’s Senate seats.

“The problem she has — it’s not the language she speaks — it’s her positions,” Scott told The Hill.

“I’m running on my record,” he added.

“I’m very comfortable that I’m going to continue to do my job and you know, my constituent services team won for the best constituent service team in the country.”

Scott is taking the 25% Hispanic population in Florida seriously.

“In my campaigns, if I’m gonna run an ad, I generally run an ad in English and in Spanish,” he told The Hill. “If I’m doing events, I’m doing events, like in the Panhandle and I’m also at same time doing events in Miami.

“Or if I’m in Tampa, I might do an event with the Chamber [of Commerce], then also do it with the Hispanic Chamber.

“So I’ve always reached out to everybody, because I represent everybody.”

The margins are going to be important in the Florida Senate race, particularly because Scott’s three statewide victories have been close, according to The Hill: 1.2 percentage points for governor in 2010, 1 point for reelection in 2014, and just 0.2 of a percentage point in the 2018 Senate race against incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., (about 10,000 votes among the 8 million cast).

Still, regardless of the language, the issues are the same for Floridians, according to Scott.

“[Hispanics] generally care about the same thing as everybody else, but they also do care about democracy and freedom in Latin America,” Scott told The Hill. “So while they care about jobs, they care about education, they care about law enforcement, they also care about that.”

Florida was pushed away from being a battleground state to more reliably Republican, partially due to Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Scott has this issues in his favor vs. Mucarsel-Powell to turn close margins into a wide victory as DeSantis did in 2022.

“She runs around with people that are anti-police; I don’t know Hispanics that are anti-police,” he told The Hill. “She runs around with people that are anti-Israel. In my experience with Hispanics, they’re not anti-Israel. You know, she basically is a socialist. My experience with Hispanics is they’re not socialists.”

Scott even appeals to the large Puerto Rican contingent in the Orlando area, suggesting the long liberal bastion might ultimately become an official U.S. state.

“First off, what they want to do is they want to take care of their families,” Scott told The Hill. “No. 2, their futures, their kids, so they care about education. And the other thing is they want to have a low crime rate.

“It’s important to talk about the issues and work with the issues that impact Puerto Ricans and, and acknowledge, I think Puerto Rico eventually will be a state. I think they have to get their fiscal house in order and whether everybody agrees with me here, I’m one vote.”