Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter MIRAMAR (CBSMiami) – Election day is just 35 days away. On Tuesday, a debate took place in one of the biggest races in Florida. Before the candidates took to the stage, demonstrators were debating their choice for Florida’s next United States senator. People supporting both sides of the aisle made their case on who to vote for next month. In their first debate both incumbent Democrat Senator Bill Nelson and Republican challenger Governor Rick Scott went on the attack. “You know governor, you can’t tell the truth,” Nelson said. “My opponent has been there years and never gets anything done,” Scott added. The debate is an extension of the battle lines that have been drawn in this tight, closely watched race. They argued their extreme differences, from health care to immigration reform. “I want to protect the environment, expand health care,” Nelson said. “He wants to kill it.” “We have to have secure borders and obey the law,” said Scott. “And we have to take care of DACA kids.” Nothing was off limits, even the Brett Kavanaugh hearing, “There wasn’t the temperament to put him on the highest court,” Nelson said. “The way the senate behaved it was like the Jerry Springer Show,” replied Scott. Each side had prominent supporters in the audience. In the governors camp, Lincoln Diaz Balart and outgoing congresswoman Ileans Ros Lehtinen. For Senator Nelson, Parkland dad Fred Guttenberg.<doc-sep>The Florida Senate race has given Democrats plenty of reason to be nervous this year. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is facing Republican Gov. Rick Scott, one of the best recruits for Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections and a wealthy candidate whose campaign is already outspending Nelson’s by a 4-to-1 margin. The two faced off in a debate on Tuesday night. Nelson has built a reasonably strong brand, representing Florida in the Senate since 2001. Scott, meanwhile, has never won a race by more than a point in years friendlier to the GOP. But the GOP governor is still a serious threat in a state where elections are rarely decided by more than a point or two. For most of the summer, Scott had jumped out to a slim lead in the polling — and a major advantage in campaign spending, spending more than $27 million to Nelson’s $6 million, according to Open Secrets. Democrats have had to hope the lopsided spending explained the Republican lead in the polls and can therefore be corrected as their own spending picks up in the last weeks of the campaign. “Having been in the fight with Scott in the past, there is a flow to the way they campaign: they use their financial advantage to get on TV early, and Scott, to his credit, is tireless on the stump,” Steve Schale, a Democratic operative in Florida, told me. “So am I worried about Nelson? Sure, but not any more or less than any Democrat running in a competitive race here. This race was always destined to be close, it is just how Florida works these days, for better or worse.” Florida is one of 2018’s marquee — and probably its most expensive — Senate races. Democrats are on defense in yet another state Trump won in 2016. They can’t afford to lose any additional seats if they’re to have any hope of reclaiming the majority. “The two biggest determinants in the Senate race are, one, resources and, two, Donald Trump,” Mac Stipanovich, a longtime Republican operative in Florida, told me earlier this year. “Either one of them can win, but my sense is that if Nelson has comparable resources then the governor is the underdog.” Why Rick Scott’s Florida Senate candidacy is such a big deal Scott’s candidacy was long expected. Trump and Washington Republicans had been courting him. He is term-limited at the end of this year, after his two four-year terms as governor. He doesn’t really have anything else to do. Rick Scott is also very, very rich, and he has shown before he’s willing to spend whatever it takes to win a statewide election in Florida. He is worth about $150 million, according to the most recent estimates, after making his money as a hospital executive. He spent $75 million of his own money to win the 2010 gubernatorial race — his first political campaign of any kind — and another $13 million in his 2014 reelection campaign. Scott never won big: He beat Alex Sink by 1.2 percentage points in 2010 and Charlie Crist by 1 point in 2014. But he did win. “With Scott, this is a guy who’s been told he can’t do something like this twice, and twice proven everybody wrong,” Schale told me. “A more conventional politician might look at national mood and think, ‘Wow, this could be really uphill.’ Scott’s view is: ‘You told me I couldn’t win the first time, and I won. Why would I listen to you now?’” Scott’s candidacy is also important from a national perspective. Republicans theoretically have a lot of Senate pickup opportunities this year; Nelson is one of 10 Democrats up for reelection in a state that Trump won in 2016. But they have at times struggled to attract top-tier candidates. To give one example: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester, representing Montana, a state that Trump won by 21 points, is still rated lean Democratic by the Cook Political Report because his GOP opponent isn’t considered top-notch and Tester has polled well. The Florida governor, on the other hand, is a hardened, well-qualified, and sure to be well-funded candidate. Scott has forced Democrats to take Florida seriously and to invest the necessary time and money into the race to make sure Nelson beats Scott. This race has demanded resources Democrats otherwise could have spent defending their other more vulnerable incumbents or going on offense in states like Arizona, Nevada, or Mississippi. Republicans currently hold a slim 51-49 advantage in the Senate. Democrats are defending seven of the 10 most competitive races this fall, and need to hold on to every seat they can — including, now, Florida, which Cook rates as a toss-up — if they want a shot at a majority. “This is a very competitive race, and if the Democrats don’t lay out on it, they’ll lose. They are going to have to step up and help Bill Nelson,” Stipanovich said. “If Scott outspends him 2 to 1, it’s quite likely that Gov. Scott will prevail.” The current spending figures give Scott that kind of advantage: Open Secret reports that Scott has raised $31 million to Nelson’s $20 million and spent nearly $28 million to Nelson’s $6 million. Perhaps as a result, Real Clear Politics had Scott leading Nelson by one or two points on average in the polls, until recently. Nelson now holds an equally slim 1.1-point advantage, after a couple of strong surveys. It’s a very close race. The charisma-free Rick Scott versus Bill Nelson campaign, previewed As for the candidates themselves, the Florida Senate race has been lacking in charisma. That was clear again in Tuesday night’s debate. Schale had previously said of his fellow Democrat Nelson: “Not a guy who’s lining up to give the keynote speech at the DNC. Not gonna break any records for his oratory skills.” Regarding Scott, Stipanovich, the Republican operative, had said: “Gov. Scott doesn’t exactly light up the stage. He’s not the most dynamic and inspiring speaker.” I profiled Scott in 2013 for Governing magazine and came away with much the same impression: At the Florida statehouse for National Day of Prayer this May, for instance, the businessman who won Florida’s governorship in 2010 doesn’t work the room so much as he goes through the motions. He dons the same slight smile as each photo is taken. He exchanges a few friendly words with every person who approaches him in the large room on the 21st floor of the Capitol. Standing by the windows, he’s framed by an expansive view of Tallahassee and beyond, but he doesn’t own the scene. There isn’t the charisma you might associate with the governor of the fourth-largest state in the country. Scott has tried to turn that to his advantage in his campaign. “Let’s stop sending talkers to Washington. Let’s send some doers to Washington,” he said in his maiden campaign speech. It’s a theme he hits constantly throughout his campaign, portraying Nelson as an aging career politician with nothing to show for his many years in the Senate. Nelson, meanwhile, has sought to paint Scott as a political opportunist who isn’t being honest about his record as Florida’s governor. “While it’s clear that Rick Scott will say or do anything to get elected, I’ve always believed that if you just do the right thing, the politics will take care of itself,” he said in a statement. They do have strengths, of course. Nelson has been elected in the state three times, after all, most recently by 13 points in 2012 — unheard of in a state where statewide elections are usually decided by a point or two. Schale praised the senator (who once famously went to space) for sticking to Florida-specific issues, like offshore drilling and Medicare for the state’s more elderly population, while mostly avoiding the high-profile spats in Washington on more contentious matters. “Nelson does a pretty good job as well of avoiding those big fights,” Schale said. “He’s a guy who leans in really hard on issues that are important to the state.” Scott, meanwhile, rode into office on the Tea Party wave, railing against Obamacare.<doc-sep>“And she was doing that in front of 11 Republican men that seemed to dismiss it,” he said. Mr. Scott voiced support for the judge, accusing Mr. Nelson of partisanship for failing to focus on abuse and assault allegations against Democrats like Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, and criticizing Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. “The way the U.S. Senate has handled this, it’s a circus,” Mr. Scott said. “It’s more like a ‘Jerry Springer Show.’ Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh are just pawns in some political game.” Mr. Scott, who was elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2014 with a relentless jobs message, has kept the Senate race close in part thanks to his direct appeals to Hispanic voters, and not only to Cuban-Americans in South Florida who lean Republican. He has also made repeated outreach to non-Cuban Hispanics, especially Puerto Ricans in Central Florida who tend to vote Democratic but are generally grateful to the governor for his visible presence on the island after Hurricane Maria last year. Still, it was Mr. Nelson who won the endorsement on Monday of Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo A. Rosselló, who called Mr. Scott a friend but said Mr. Nelson had been helpful to the island even before the hurricane. On Tuesday, Mr. Nelson vaunted Mr. Rosselló’s support and slammed the Trump administration’s Maria response, referring to the day when Mr. Trump tossed paper towels to storm victims, a gesture that many Puerto Ricans found distasteful in the wake of the disaster. “He said, quote, ‘I would not have done anything differently,’” Mr. Nelson said of Mr. Scott. “Distancing yourself from President Trump — would that guarantee the Puerto Rican vote in Florida?” Jackie Nespral, a debate moderator from the local NBC affiliate, asked Mr. Scott. “I don’t think of politics that way,” he said. “I think about, how do you help families? Whether they’re in Puerto Rico, whether they came here, or whether they went back, my job is to be a full-service governor.”<doc-sep>
Florida’s Senate candidates held their first Spanish debate Tuesday night, a frosty affair that nonetheless touched on myriad topics of interest to state and Hispanic voters. Held before a small studio audience in Miramar, incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson hammered his opponent, Republican Gov. Rick Scott, as one who has trouble telling the truth while Mr. Scott repeatedly told voters Mr. Nelson has trouble getting anything done. The bilingual nature and 90-second time limit – more strictly enforced than is usual in political debates – made for a strained atmosphere, but the moderators kept things moving on issues that ranged from the environment to jobs, and from Latin America to Washington. In particular, the candidates were asked about Venezuela and Cuba. Mr. Nelson noted more than once he is barred from traveling to Cuba for what he said is his long-time hostility toward the Castro brothers’ Havana regime, and Mr. Scott calling the U.S. rapprochement with Cuba as a “Nelson-Obama appeasement deal.” Both candidates offered a closing statement in Spanish, with Mr. Nelson telling viewers what an honor he considered public service and concluding, “I need your vote. I want your vote.” In his close, Mr. Scott told the audience how important it was for every family to bring change to Washington. Mr. Nelson’s strongest moments appeared to come on the environment when he accused Mr. Scott of “systematically dismantling” Florida’s environmental bureaucracy. The reductions led to more water pollutants which, in turn, are to blame for the red tide and algae blooms that have bothered residents, hurt the tourism industry and killed fish. Mr. Scott looked forceful when he maintained his positions even after Mr. Nelson tried to paint them as extreme. For example, the moderators asked about gun control – an issue that has particular resonance in Florida given the state has seen horrific mass shootings at both the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and a high school near Ft. Lauderdale. Mr. Nelson said “assault rifles” had to be removed from public life and that universal background checks that Mr. Scott’s A+ rating from the NRA makes impossible for him to support. “I believe in the Second Amendment,” Mr. Scott replied calmly. “I believe in the First Amendment. I believe in the Bill of Rights.” On the issue of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, the candidates also divided. Mr. Nelson said he would vote against Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court and held out hope another FBI background check would uncover something incriminating. Mr. Nelson said that Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony in response to nearly four-decade-old allegations he tried to strip a girl in high school revealed an anger at odds with desired judicial temperament. In response, Mr. Scott said he found the raw and emotional testimony of both Mr. Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, compelling but, given the completely uncorroborated nature of the charges, he supports Mr. Kavanaugh on the basis of his voluminous judicial writings and career. Florida will also elect a new governor in November as Mr. Scott is term-limited, and that race could have an impact on the Senate election. Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, who won the Democratic primary, is running against former Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, and Mr. Gillum’s youth and race could galvanize young voters who may also break for Mr. Nelson. Whoever replaces him, Mr. Scott said he hopes they continue his economic policies which he claimed in 8 years have eliminated deficits, raised revenues and led to a booming employment market. Mr. Nelson replied he expected Mr. Gillum to win in part because Floridians didn’t see Mr. Scott’s tenure in such rosy terms and were looking for someone to go in a different direction. “Senator Nelson and Andrew Gillum will kill the economy,” Mr. Scott said bluntly, saying both are bankrupt of economic ideas beyond raising taxes and the regulatory burden. When the debate turned to health care, Mr. Nelson said Obamacare would be working better if Mr. Scott had agreed to expand the state’s Medicaid rolls for another 800,000 Floridians; Mr. Scott said Obamacare would never work because it was built on lies. The two exchanged a wooden handshake at the end. Sign up for Daily Newsletters Manage Newsletters Copyright © 2021 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.