JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Despite a late pledge from National Democrats to put enough money into Florida’s Senate race to make it competitive, Democrats on the ground have felt like they’re on their own.
The race was always a long shot, given how red the state has turned in recent years. And Democrats admit that their Senate candidate, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, will need a miracle to win.Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign has been begging for more attention from national Democrats, arguing in mid-October that the race was a toss-up and all they need to win “is a significant cash infusion over the last three weeks.”
Florida Democrats haven’t won a statewide race since 2018, when current state party Chair Nikki Fried won her commissioner of agriculture race. The state party has been shouting about its smaller wins to try to attract investment. They point to Democrat Donna Deegan as an example, who won the 2023 mayoral race in the swing Duval County after Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis won by 12 points the year before. But winning a mayoral race hasn’t translated to serious cash or attention up and down the ballot.
“Florida has been counted out, Florida has been the underdog. But we, as underdogs, know how to fight back,” Fried told NOTUS. “When Florida Democrats show that we can do this and do this on our own, people are gonna start taking notice.”
Mucarsel-Powell touted her own fundraising ability when NOTUS asked about the dearth of national funding. “This has been a grassroots campaign,” she said after a campaign rally in Jacksonville on Wednesday.
“Just today, someone gave me $20 because they care so much about what happens to the future of this country. We have raised enough money that I’ve been able to outspend Rick Scott, and it’s because people are with me,” she told NOTUS.
Between the start of August and mid-October, her campaign has outspent Scott — about $20 million compared to his $12 million, but he still leads for the whole of the election cycle: about $41 million to her $30 million.
“It’s not about the money. It’s about the people coming out to vote,” Mucarsel-Powell added, echoing the same long-shot optimism of numerous Florida Democrats NOTUS spoke to on the ground.
One reason Mucarsel-Powell could largely keep up with spending despite the lack of national funds was that Scott didn’t drop the same kind of personal cash as he did in his last election. As of Thursday, he had contributed about $26 million to his campaign, compared to the $64 million he spent in the 2018 campaign cycle, according to campaign finance records.
Democrats spent $60 million on ads in Scott’s 2018 Senate race, according to data from the ad-tracking firm AdImpact, “and he won anyway,” Scott campaign spokesperson Jonathan Turcotte texted NOTUS. (Scott won the race against incumbent Bill Nelson by a little over 10,000 votes.) But it’s a stark contrast to this cycle: Democrats have spent just $17.9 million in ads for Mucarsel-Powell as of mid-October.
Turcotte called the low investment this cycle a reflection of national Democrats seeing Mucarsel-Powell as a candidate who would be a “waste of money.”
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee insists they care about the race and are paying attention to it.
“Scott’s unpopularity coupled with the strength of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s campaign makes Florida one of Senate Democrats top offensive opportunities,” Maeve Coyle, spokesperson for the DSCC, said in a statement to NOTUS. The DSCC announced late-in-the-game ad buys in Texas and Florida in late September.
Joe Biden’s campaign gave Florida a quick nod in April after the state Supreme Court ruled to allow the abortion rights amendment to go on the ballot. Polling has shown Mucarsel-Powell narrowing Scott’s lead in recent weeks, within a 5-point margin, according to averages compiled by 538.
But Senate campaigns in battleground states — as well as competitive races where incumbents are running for reelection — have been soaking up much of the party’s resources. Florida is also notoriously expensive for ad spending, with more major media markets than most swing states.
“There should have been a bigger spend,” Rahman Johnson, a surrogate of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and a Jacksonville city councilman, told NOTUS. “The party needed to do more, but what we have done on the ground in Florida — we stepped it up.”
“I get it, I get it. We got to focus on what’s gonna win the Electoral College,” he conceded.
In the parking lot of a labor union headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida, last week — with 80-degree heat radiating from the black asphalt — about 50 people gathered to shake hands and go door knocking with Mucarsel-Powell on one of her last campaign stops before Election Day.
The supporters there hoped they’ll be able to prove everyone wrong on Election Day.
“What I focus on is not polls or the beltway-think of where the true battlegrounds are, it’s the everyday conversations that I have with voters,” Duval County Democratic Chair Daniel Henry told NOTUS. “People get enamored by thinking that these elections are decided by ad buys, but in states like Florida and especially in communities like ours, ads only get you so far.”
He wasn’t alone in placing his hopes on the ground game in Florida — despite knowing national funders wrote the state off.
“Florida was not in play, we didn’t get any money,” Democratic congressional candidate LaShonda Holloway told NOTUS about her own race. “But, we have to remain optimistic and push until 7 p.m. Nov. 5.”
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff also had a clear message for Florida Democrats as he campaigned with Mucarsel-Powell across Jacksonville — at a senior center, labor union headquarters, door knocking and a hundred-person rally — it’s not over until it’s over.
“I could be anywhere in the country today, campaigning for any U.S. Senate candidate. I’m in Florida not just because I love Debbie, but because Debbie could win.”
But strategists were clear-eyed to NOTUS that if Mucarsel-Powell pulls out a long-shot win, it is one national Democratic funding arms should get very little credit for.
Florida-based Democratic strategist Fernand Amandi said, “If she’s able to shock the political world and end up defeating Rick Scott, it will be a victory that she accomplished completely on her own.”
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Claire Heddles and Em Luetkemeyer are reporters at NOTUS and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.