(WSVN) - A senator seat is up for grabs and battling on the ballot is Republican incumbent Rick Scott against former State Representative and Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
7News is taking a closer look at both candidates.
Senator Rick Scott is racing for re-election as Florida’s junior senator.
Before heading to Washington, D.C., he spent eight years in Tallahassee as a two-term governor.
The Republican’s campaign declined a one-on-one interview with 7News, but the candidate did answer a few questions at an event with veterans.
The first question: Why no debate?
“We just finished two hurricanes. We just finished Helene and Milton and we’ve got a lot of people hurting in our state,” said Scott.
He talked about addressing climate change.
“What we’ve got to do is do what I did as governor, we’ve got to look at what we can do,” he said. “I’ve put a lot of money in sea level rise, beach renourishment, fixing the dike at Lake Okeechobee. We’ve spent unbelievable amounts of money. We’ve got to do the same thing at the federal level.”
Scott said he’s voting no on Amendment Four, which would limit government interference with abortion.
GovTrack’s ideology score ranks Rick Scott as the most right-leaning member of the Senate.
His campaign ads show he supports another hot-button issue, In vitro fertilization (IVF).
“Our youngest daughter is receiving IVF treatments right now, hoping to expand her family,” Scott said. “She and I both agree IVF must be protected. For our family, for every family,” said Scott in the advertisement.
But Scott voted against the “Right to IVF Act,” which would guarantee federal protections for fertility treatments.
He had this to say about his opponent, former Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.
“My opponent is a socialist,” he said. “She supports open borders, she wants to defund the police. She wants appeasement for Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua. She doesn’t support the military. She had two years to say who she was, and she’d do. She voted with AOC and Tlaib, Omar.”
“It really is insulting that Rick Scott is attacking my family, my mother’s legacy; bringing me from a country where we grew up under a military dictatorship. And I’ve stood very strong against communist dictatorships in Cuba, in Venezuela, in Nicaragua. But they do it because they have nothing else to attack on,” said Mucarsel-Powell.
A campaign ad by Mucarsel-Powell highlights Scott’s past as a healthcare executive and the $1.7 billion Medicare fraud fined against his former company.
In the ad, Scott’s head was attached to the body of an invasive species in Florida: a snake.
“He stole money from seniors in the biggest Medicare fraud ever,” Powell is heard saying in the ad. “Then Scott slid into the Senate where he wrote the plan to end social security.”
Mucarsel-Powell said her campaign has been outraising and outspending her opponent.
“We know that Rick Scott is one of the most vulnerable Republicans running for reelection right now, but what is he proposing, raising taxes and eliminating the Affordable Care Act?,” she said. “Here in Florida, we have 4 million Floridians that receive their healthcare through the ACA.”
If she’s elected, among her priorities: Addressing skyrocketing home insurance rates, passing the Voting Rights Act, and codifying abortion rights.
“A woman should be able to make that decision on her own with her doctor, her family, her faith,” said Mucarsel-Powell.
These candidates won’t face off in a debate but they both have records from their time in public office.
Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.