US Senator Rick ScottR-Fla., is in a tougher-than-expected battle with his leading Democratic challenger, former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
A Florida Atlantic University poll released Wednesday shows Scott has support from 45% of likely voters. Mucarsel-Powell has 43%. In fact, that’s a tie, within the study’s margin of error.
The battle between Scott and Mucarsel-Powell is much tighter — a difference of just 2 percentage points among likely voters — than in FAU’s last statewide poll in April.
Scott had the support of 53% of likely voters in the previous poll, 17 points ahead of Mucarsel-Powell’s 36%.
“In April, a lot of people didn’t know who Mucarsel-Powell was. Her brand awareness has improved considerably. This has improved support for her,” said Kevin Wagner, a political scientist at FAU.
“If that trend line holds, it suggests it could be a competitive race,” he said, adding that it is still too early to make that assessment. “It’s still June, so we’ll see how that turns out.”
Wagner is also co-director of FAU’s PolCom Lab, a partnership of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and the Department of Political Science, which conducted the poll.
Scott’s reelection contest has not received as much attention as other key U.S. Senate races from national political forecasters, given Florida’s increasingly Republican leanings.
Democrats had a voter registration advantage when he was first elected to the Senate in 2018; now the Republicans are far ahead of the Democrats.
And Scott is the richest member of the US Senate, with an estimated net worth of $300 million. He has shown in previous races – including two successful campaigns for governor of Florida – that he is willing to spend his own money on his political efforts.
Mucarsel-Powell, who served one term in Congress before being defeated in 2020, is not particularly well-known statewide. She is the leading Democratic candidate but faces an August primary.
According to the most recent reports from nonpartisan analysts, Scott favored winning.
The nonpartisan Inside Elections rates the Florida election as “solidly Republican,” and both the Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ Crystal Ball both list it as “probably” Republican.
A matchup between Scott and Mucarsel-Powell isn’t that close when we consider all voters, as opposed to likely voters.
Among all voters, Scott had Mucarsel-Powell 44% to 40%. In April this was 51% to 35%.
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Among likely voters in the June poll, there were no significant differences between men and women.
Both Scott and Mucarsel-Powell performed better among voters 50 and older than among voters under 50.
Among younger voters, 21% said they had not yet made a choice or preferred another candidate. Among voters aged 50 and over, 6% said they were undecided or preferred another candidate.
Democrats overwhelmingly favored Mucarsel-Powell and Republicans overwhelmingly favored Scott. The incumbent party also had a significant advantage among independent voters, from 48% to 30%.
The Senate is deeply divided and many analysts expect the Senate to switch from Democratic to Republican control. Scott has already announced, assuming he wins reelection, that he will run for Republican Senate Majority Leader after the November election.
Trump remains ahead
The FAU poll showed former President Donald Trump still leading President Joe Biden in Florida.
Among likely voters, Trump leads Biden 49% to 43%, a lead of 6 percentage points.
In April, Trump led 51% to 43%, an 8-point lead.
Many political analysts consider Trump a strong favorite to win Florida’s thirty electoral votes. Dukhong Kim, an FAU political scientist, said in a statement that the numbers suggest Biden “kept the race competitive” in Florida.
The overall parameters of the Florida contest don’t change much when we take Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s candidacy into account.
When pollsters put him in the mix, Trump had 45% of likely voters, 40% for Biden and 8% for Kennedy.
Wagner said it is too early to judge Kennedy’s impact on the game. It’s still early enough that “people feel comfortable trying out third-party candidates. That tends to drop quite sharply as you move towards November.”
Governor from 2026
A month ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis downplayed the idea that his wife, Casey, would run to succeed him in 2026 if term limits prevent him from running again. He said she had “zero” interest in running for governor.
But many Florida Republicans continue to like the idea.
Pollsters asked who they would support for governor if an election were held today.
By far the largest share, 43%, Casey DeSantis quoted.
Three other candidates had double digits: Congressman Byron Donalds, 19%; state Attorney General Ashley Moody, 14%; and Congressman Matt Gaetz, with 13%.
No one has said they are on the run; everyone is expected to consider the possibility.
Donalds has received enormous publicity for campaigning in support of Trump and being considered a likely candidate for vice president; Gaetz, the Panhandle Republican, was instrumental in the impeachment of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy; and Moody was a champion of DeSantis’ priorities in her role as state AG.
Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, also seen as keeping an eye on the governor’s race, was the pick of just 5%. Pollsters did not ask about another potential candidate, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson.
One takeaway from the results, according to Wagner, is the strength of the DeSantis brand among Florida Republicans.
“The DeSantis name, especially in the Republican Party, is very, very powerful,” he said.
Issues
The most important issue for Florida voters in the presidential election is the economy, mentioned by 38% of Florida voters, followed by immigration at 25% and abortion at 15%.
Democrats, Republicans, independents, men and women all named the economy as their top choice.
Abortion was by far the second issue for Democrats and immigration was by far the second issue for Republicans and independents.
For voters under 50, the economy was by far the most important issue, mentioned by 50%. Among older voters, 29% said immigration was their biggest problem and 29% said the economy was their biggest problem.
Fine print
The survey of 878 adults in Florida was conducted June 8 and 9 by Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University’s PolCom Lab.
The survey used an online panel and automated phone calls to reach other voters. It has a margin of error equal to plus or minus 3 percentage points.
However, the margin of error for smaller groups, such as people in each of the three states, Republicans or Democrats, or men and women, would be greater because the sample size is smaller.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found at @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
