Republican Primary voters in Florida will have a decision to make in August regarding whether to give a current Senator the party's nomination again.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott has qualified for the ballot, but an opponent has also qualified. Melbourne lawyer Keith Gross will be attempting to make his case to GOP registrants that they can do better than their current Senator.
It remains to be seen how seriously Scott, a former two-term Governor first elected in 2018, will take the challenge from the unheralded and underfunded Gross.
The most recent poll of the General Election shows the Senator above 50% against likely Democratic nominee Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and both Scott's and Mucarsel-Powell's messaging is more suited to a General Election than a contested Primary.
Scott closed the quarter with $3,782,782 in cash on hand, a relatively modest number not reflective of his campaign's ultimate spending capacity. Of that money, the campaign raised $1,103,113 since the beginning of the year, spending $1,561,459. Other authorized committees poured in $1,066,588.
Of course, the formal fundraising report tells only part of the story. He raised a total of $2.5 million between his campaign and three other committees in Q1, along with $140,000 for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. A PAC backing Scott also raised $1.4 million.
Beyond that, there's his ability to self-fund.
As Roll Call noted in 2018, Scott put $63.6 million into his successful race against former Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. He poured more than $75 million into his 2010 race for Governor, where he ran as an outsider candidate who toppled a Republican backed by many establishment elements of the party.
Meanwhile, Gross closed the quarter with under $30,000 on hand, against nearly $1.75 million in campaign debts.
Scott's 2018 election was a November nail biter. He prevailed over three-term Sen. Bill Nelson by less than a percentage point.
However, he did not sweep the Republican Primary despite clearing the field of serious competition.
Serial candidate Roque de la Fuente got more than 11% in August 2018 as a protest vote against Scott, who had irked some on the right by signing off on post-Parkland gun control measures, which included banning people under 21 from buying guns.
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