Rick Scott (L) and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell will now face off in the general election for U.S. Senate in November.. (Scott photo by Gage Skidmore, from Flickr; Mucarsel-Powell photo from campaign website)
There are fewer than 10 weeks left before the general election, but there has yet to be any announcement of debates in Florida’s U.S. Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and his Democratic challenger, former South Florida U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
On a Zoom call Aug. 27 organized by the Florida Democratic Party, Mucarsel-Powell responded to a question from a reporter about criticism from Scott by saying that she was “ready to debate him in Spanish,” but didn’t elaborate.
“Enough with the lies, Rick,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “Let’s have a debate in Spanish. Are you scared of doing that? Because the only person who’s going to be advocating for freedom and democracy in Latin America is going to be me, not you.”
An aide to the Mucarsel-Powell team later told the Phoenix that staff have been in conversations with several Florida television stations about scheduling a potential debate or debates. The aide went on to say that Mucarsel-Powell would be “happy to debate in both English and Spanish.”
Mucarsel-Powell was born in Ecuador and speaks fluent Spanish. Scott also speaks Spanish and has run television ads speaking in Spanish going back years.
If a debate is scheduled, the announcement probably would come within the first few weeks of September. The first debate between Scott and then Democratic-incumbent Bill Nelson in 2018 was announced on Sept. 10 of that year.
That debate was the only one that took place, and it happened in the Miramar studio of Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo. A second debate had been scheduled in Tampa to air nationally on CNN but it never took place, with both candidates blaming each other for the cancellation.
The Scott campaign did not return a request for comment.
Race tightening
In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, Republican incumbent Marco Rubio and Democratic candidate Val Demings participated in only one televised debate, which aired three weeks before Election Day.
The most recent public opinion polls show the race tightening. A Public Policy Polling survey released Tuesday showed Scott up by three points, 46% to 43%, with 10% undecided. A Florida Atlantic University poll released earlier this month had Scott up by 4%, 47%-43%. An Associated Industries of Florida survey also released earlier this month had Scott up by 10%, 52%-42%.
Other candidates in the race include Libertarian Feena Bonoan, nonparty-affiliated candidates Ben Everidge and Tuan TQ Nguyen, and write-in candidate Howard Knepper.
The deadline for supervisors of elections to send vote-by-mail ballots to overseas and military members is Sept.21. Domestic vote-by-mail ballots will be sent to voters starting on Sept. 26.
This story is courtesy of Florida Phoenix.
Florida Phoenix is a nonprofit news site, free of advertising and free to readers, covering state government and politics with a staff of five journalists located at the Florida Press Center in downtown Tallahassee. Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
