Republican Rick Scott Wins Reelection in Florida US Senate Race

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) waits for the arrival of Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump for a roundtable discussion at the Latino Summit held at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, Fla., on Oct. 22, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

In a close race that Democrats saw as a potential opportunity in their fight to retain their U.S. Senate majority going into 2025, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) prevailed over his Democratic challenger, former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, winning reelection for a second term on Nov. 5.

Scott first won his Senate seat in 2018 by slightly more than 10,000 votes over then-Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) with a 0.12 percent margin. While recent polls showed that in some cases Mucarsel-Powell was within 3 to 4 points of Scott, Republicans now hold a more than 1 million-person voter registration advantage over Democrats in Florida.

That surge of Republican voters in the Sunshine State after the pandemic created a high bar for Democrats running in the state, especially since Democrats still held an advantage over their opponents when Scott ran in 2018.

Scott served as Florida’s governor from 2011 to 2019. He ran a multi-million dollar television ad campaign in early October, targeting Tampa, Orlando, and Miami: areas of the state that still have large numbers of Democrats.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) pledged a multimillion-dollar spending effort to boost Mucarsel-Powell in the state, said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) in late September. From 2019 to 2021, Mucarsel-Powell represented Florida’s 26th congressional district, which included portions of Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys.

The congresswoman lost her 2020 reelection bid to the then-mayor of Miami-Dade County Carlos A. Giménez, a Republican.

This year, Mucarsel-Powell ran on a platform targeting inflation, the rising cost of living, out-of-control home insurance premiums in Florida, and increasing job and vocational training opportunities.

Scott’s campaign focused on a 12-point plan that included support for education in schools that reject “critical race theory,” plans to remove race designations on state government forms, a tough-on-crime stance, and a continuation of former President Donald Trump’s border wall.

With the potential pickup of Florida’s Senate seat now off the table, Democrats are particularly vulnerable with the Montana race, which The Cook Political Report rates as  “solid Republican.” In West Virginia, which was rated “lean Republican,” Republican Gov. Jim Justice flipped the Senate seat to the GOP shortly after polls closed this evening, narrowing Democrats’ lead in the Senate. 

The Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin seats are rated as toss-ups, and will likely determine which party controls the U.S. Senate in 2025, especially with West Virginia’s seat turning red.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was declared the winner in Florida shortly after 8 p.m. ET, according to The Associated Press. He was leading his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris by more than one million votes.