When in Washington, Sen.
Scott announced his bid last month to replace Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who is stepping down from that post at the end of this year. Scott promised a “sea change” if colleagues elect him over the other two more establishment contenders for the position, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), a current and former whip.
The protracted contest for leader, likely ending in a secret ballot in November, will help determine whether Senate Republicans will remain a moderating force in the party or join their House counterparts in the march to the right.
If Donald Trump is elected president, the Senate GOP leader will be critical to pushing through his agenda. If Joe Biden is re-elected, that person will play a major role in amending or slowing down his plans and nominations.
Running for re-election in a former swing state that has increasingly turned Republican, Scott promotes his conservative politics and tactics on the campaign trail and his leadership bid.
“Basically both jobs are doing the same thing: You’re trying to fight and defeat the policies and the destruction caused by the radical left,” Scott said in an interview outside The Rude Shrimp Co. in Fort Myers Beach, Fla.
Scott was spending the Senate’s Memorial Day recess flying across his home state, where he urged residents to prepare for hurricane season.
Uphill Challenge
Scott, a first-term lawmaker, faces an uphill battle in his leadership contest against two experienced senators who have spent years forging ties with their colleagues. Even if Republicans win control in November, their majority will likely be slim, presenting challenges to whomever is elected leader in cobbling together votes to pass legislation.
A frequent McConnell critic who sought to oust him as leader in 2022, Scott dismissed the current practice of letting leadership negotiate trillion-dollar-deals behind closed doors.
Scott said that top senators believe “they must be smarter than everybody else” to make such decisions. “It makes no sense” that leadership decides what amendments get votes, he said.
He has zeroed in on reducing federal spending and securing the southern border with Mexico, using social media posts to pillory “the old leaders of both parties” for failing on both issues.
Scott, a former venture capitalist and hospital executive, compared coming negotiations — whether it’s with members of the opposite party or even Trump back in the White House — to his rejection of deals to buy hospitals or manufacturers when the price was too high.
“If you don’t believe you have the votes, you just say, ‘there aren’t the votes,’” Scott said. “You want to go talk to everybody? Have at it.”
Scott led hospital behemoth Columbia/HCA until he was forced out in 1997, when the company paid the largest health care fraud settlement of the time amid allegations of Medicare and Medicaid overcharges and kickbacks.
The Republicans’ agenda, Scott said, wouldn’t necessarily reflect his own proposals.
“It’s not going to be Rick Scott’s plan, it’s going to be the conference’s plan,” Scott said. He declined to say whether senators would support his proposal to sunset all federal laws in order to force changes to them, which he modified to explicitly exempt popular mandatory spending programs when both parties criticized him for trying to cut Social Security and Medicare.
But Scott said there’s still a need to overhaul Social Security and Medicare, which are projected to run out of money in 2033 and 2036, respectively, according to Treasury Department officials.
“Let’s start talking about all the options to solve the problem,” Scott said.
Energizing Hardliners
Scott’s bid has energized fellow hard-liners in the Senate, including those that supported his effort to unseat McConnell as leader. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he’s a “big supporter” of Scott’s bid and praised his “successful” tenure in the private sector and as governor.
Scott has at times embraced bipartisanship both in Tallahassee and Washington, securing aid for Puerto Rico and as governor signing legislation curbing firearm access after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. in 2018.
But Scott’s hostility to privately working out deals would contrast with the practice of McConnell and his deputies who now seek to replace him. McConnell, the longest-serving leader in the Senate’s history, has frequently exerted his authority when it comes to funding the government and allies overseas or halting changes to the campaign finance system.
Cornyn and Thune jumped into the race months ago and projected confidence when asked about Scott’s bid, which was long expected by his colleagues.
“I have a fairly good sense of where people want to head,” Thune told reporters after Scott’s announcement.
In contrast to Cornyn and Thune, Scott has stayed out of the primaries of the most competitive Senate races, which could elect Republicans who will cast their first vote for leader before they’re even sworn in.
He personally knows and has contributed money to Bernie Moreno, a Cleveland auto dealer nominated for Senate in Ohio. Scott also said he knows Sam Brown from the Nevada Republican’s first bid for Senate while Scott chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2022 election cycle.
“I’ll do as much as I can,” Scott said. “My first job of course is win my race.”
Shifting Right
Scott, who is the only current candidate for leader who must first win his re-election in November, has faced close campaigns in the past.
He won two terms as governor by just a percentage point and secured his seat in the Senate in 2018 by just over 10,000 votes, a result so narrow it went to a recount. He spent $64 million of his own money on that campaign, the most self-funding of any Senate candidate during this century.
Trump carried his adopted home by 3 points in 2020. Two years later, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a potential pick to be Republicans’ vice presidential nominee this year, both won re-election by more than 16 points.
The state has “shifted to the right,” Rep. Carlos Giménez, a moderate Republican who represents part of Miami-Dade County and the Florida Keys, said in an interview in the Miami suburb of Hialeah. “He’s a solid conservative, and the people of Florida know him.”
Democrats have sought to use Scott’s bid for leader to elevate their bid to replace him with former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who’s leading their primary to challenge Scott in November.
Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign shortly after Scott’s announcement he’d run for leader created a microsite — scottforleader.com — that highlights Scott’s positions on abortion, taxes, and entitlement spending as well as his leadership of Columbia/HCA
At a party office in Coral Gables, Fla. last week, Mucarsel-Powell signed a poster-sized pledge to “never cut Medicare or Social Security.”
“The more people pay attention to the reality of what a Rick Scott Senate would look like, the more I’m getting support,” she said in an interview.
In Fort Myers Beach — which is still rebuilding two years after Hurricane Ian struck the southwest Florida island — Scott was flanked by state and local officials. In his signature Navy baseball cap, he handed out challenge coins to law enforcement and urged residents to take advantage of the sales tax holiday to stock up on emergency provisions.
“If you want to stay alive, get ready, go through the darn list,” Scott said as the Gulf Coast temperature approached 100 degrees. And if ordered to evacuate, “don’t be stupid.”
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