ORLANDO, Fla. – On Nov. 5, Florida voters will decide whether to send the state’s junior senator back to Washington, or give a Democrat a chance, and potentially help that party keep the U.S. Senate.
News 6 viewers told us what issues were informing their vote in this election, and we asked the candidates.
Scott is seeking a second term in the U.S. Senate. If Scott wins he will also seek to become the next Senate Republican Leader, replacing Mitch McConnell. If the GOP wins control of the U.S. Senate, Scott will have enormous power over the Congressional agenda.
For Scott, winning by a landslide margin in Florida has not come easy.
In 2014, Scott was re-elected governor by 64,000 votes out of 5.6 million casts. In 2010, he was elected governor by 63,000 votes out of more than 5 million.
[RESULTS 2024: Complete Coverage | What to know about the November presidential election in Florida | Here’s how your vote gets counted and verified]
In 2018, he won the Senate seat with 50.1% and a margin of just 10,000 votes over Bill Nelson.
Meanwhile, the stakes have gotten higher for Democrats trying to keep control of the Senate and Scott’s primary opponent could be key to that goal. The national party poured money into Florida, giving Mucarsel-Powell a boost.
News 6 interviewed candidates or sent questionnaires asking about their backgrounds and their views on several issues. As we get those responses we will add them to this story.
Rick Scott (R) - Campaign website
News 6 spoke to Sen. Scott on Oct. 17 at a rally in Kissimmee. The interview can be viewed in the video player below. We’ve also transcribed selected answers to some of our questions.
One of the wealthiest members of the Senate, Scott, a U.S. Navy veteran, founded the Columbia Hospital Corporation before becoming the governor of Florida from 2011-2019.
Question: One of the things in Central Florida is people are concerned about the cost of property insurance, especially after this hurricane. What can you tell us about what your plan would be to reduce the cost of homeowners’ insurance?
Scott: “The state decides property insurance, but I’m doing something to try to help it. But what they’ve got to do is they’ve gotta recruit more companies. If you want the price to come down you have to do two things, you’ve gotta recruit more companies and then you’ve got to work with the insurance companies so they’ve got a product that you can afford, that the consumer can afford. So that’s what’s gotta happen. Then they’ve gotta make sure that there’s a state catastrophic fund that helps reduce the cost of insurance. They’ve got to make sure it’s fully funded.
“Now at the federal level, there’s two things I’m doing. Number one, property insurance, I’m working to get a tax break for all homeowners up to $10,000 per year on their property insurance. Number two, something that is a federal program is the National Flood Insurance Program. The only way it’s going to get fixed is we’re a donor state, so it makes no sense that our rates would be going up, is to work on building the private market. So that’s what I’ve been doing. But there are, the states that are taker states on the national flood insurance, they don’t like any changes.”
Question: And what about on Social Security? We also have a senior population here that’s concerned.
Scott: “And Medicare. So here’s what’s scary. Medicare goes bankrupt in, like, 5 or 6 years. Social Security goes bankrupt, 11 to 13. What we’ve got to do is protect all the benefits, OK? So we’ve got to take Medicare. The way you fix Medicare is you’ve got to make sure the delivery process is less expensive. So you never have to worry about that’s what you have to do there with, with Social Security, you’ve got to make sure it’s clean. Those are two things. I have a bill that would protect both Medicare and Social Security benefits because that’s what we have to do. And there’s clearly ways you can make the delivery system in health care less expensive.”
Question: Of course, the cost of living has gone up, particularly in Central Florida, Orlando, Kissimmee areas. What can be done?
Scott: “(When I was governor) I balanced the budget. I helped grow the economy, the private sector did it. And then our revenues grew. That’s what we have to do at the federal. We’re spending about 40% more than we take in right now at the federal level, that’s what’s causing this inflation. So we’ve got to one, live within our means and we’ve got to protect our safety nets. But we’ve got to get people back to work. We’ve got about 100 million people a day, working age, who are not working. We’ve got to get our country back to work, and we’ve got to stop spending more than we take in.”
Question: We also have a number of social issues on the ballot, abortion, where do you stand on that?
Scott: “Well I’m pro-life, so I don’t support the amendment but everyone has a right to vote any way they want.”
Question: Do you think climate change is responsible for the hurricanes?
Scott: “Well clearly climate change, and if you look, in my lifetime, the storm surges that we’re having now, we had storm surge in ‘17 with Irma down in the Keys, in ‘18 in Mexico Beach, two years ago with Ian in Fort Myers, and now we’ve had Helene and Milton. so we’ve got to figure out how to deal with it. And what I did as governor was we funded, out of your tax dollars, state-funded, studies on sea level rise, we fixed Lake Okeechobee, we did beach renourishment, but what we’ve got to figure out is we’re having physically changing, so how do we deal with it? And I think we all have to deal with it.”
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) - Campaign website
News 6 sat down with Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in September. The interview can be viewed in the video player below. We’ve also transcribed selected answers to some of our questions.
Question: How did you get to this spot today?
Mucarsel-Powell: “You know, my trajectory into politics is not the typical one. My mother brought me here when I was very young. I was 14 when she brought my sisters and I from Ecuador. My family lived under a military dictatorship. She knew that she wanted to provide us with opportunities that she wasn’t going to be able to give us in our home country.
I was very fortunate to have worked at a few at the (Florida International University) medical school for a while. I became the associate dean at the medical school and I was trying to expand access to health care to underserved communities in South Florida. And that was a time when we were seeing attacks to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, which Rick Scott has said time and time again he wants to lead that effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
That’s what prompted me to run back in 2018. And so many people thought at the time that it was impossible for somebody like myself to be elected because I wasn’t in politics. That hadn’t been my trajectory. And I knew what the community needed. I knew that they wanted change. We worked really closely together. And because of them, because of my community in South Florida, I won.”
Question: Is the border a crisis right now? And what needs to happen in your eyes?
Mucarsel-Powell: “I think that there is a lot that we need to do at the border. We have seen high numbers of people coming to the border. And the problem, part of the problem has been that there hasn’t been border security. Why? Because Congress has not sent the funding that Customs and Border Patrol needs. Now, there was a bipartisan bill that came to the Senate. It came up twice for a vote. Rick Scott voted against that. What that meant is that he was voting against funding for Customs and Border Patrol. He was voting against funding to stop the trafficking of fentanyl and funding against our law enforcement officers. I mean, this is exactly what was in that bill.
“What are we going to do about it? But the issue of the border is so much larger than just sending money to protect our border. It’s it’s very complicated. We have a very extreme and dangerous situation going on in Venezuela, where you have a dictator, Maduro, who stole the election the 28th of July. Venezuelans are fleeing the Edmundo Gonzalez who won that election, had to flee the country. And so it’s no surprise that we’re seeing more and more people coming for safety to the United States. We need to work with the hemisphere, with Central America, with South America to make sure that people can remain in their countries.”
Question: When it comes to the high cost of living. Do you think the Biden administration has done enough to curb that?
Mucarsel-Powell: “They’ve taken some good steps and they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, for example, that Rick Scott voted against. And what it did is it made certain investments to reduce the costs of goods and services, including medicine. They were able to cap the cost of insulin at $35. And that’s an important issue to point out, because working in health care, myself, too many families have been struggling with the cost of medicine.
Rick Scott wants to repeal that and I’m going to keep bringing up the contrast so that people know that they have a choice. We need to continue to bring down the price of medicine. We need to make sure that we lower property insurance rates. There’s a bill that I can lead in the Senate. I’ve already proposed that it’s on my website that you can take a look.”
Question: Home and homeowners insurance and auto insurance are way up. What can be done at the federal level to assist with the cost of insurance in this country?
Mucarsel-Powell: “We need to make sure that we bring the right investments to invest in climate resiliency. We need to deal with the impacts of climate change. How are we going to adapt a lot of these coastal communities to sea level rise?
“That’s something that I worked on when I was in Congress, so that’s part of it. We have to deal with that. But also we are going to have to look at ways to have a federally backed program for a lot of these properties. There are coastal communities right now that are facing the reality that they may not be able to live there 20-30 years from now and we are experiencing warmer oceans. We know that that’s affecting the coral reefs. I mean, all of those issues are connected. And you have to look at this in a larger, you know, with a larger vision of all the different aspects that are tying into the high cost of insurance here in the state of Florida.”
Question: What do you see as the three biggest priorities for Floridians? And how would you help your constituents with those problems and those priorities if elected?
Mucarsel-Powell: “So everything about my campaign has been about freedom and three things under that bucket of freedom, the freedom for families to be able to work and make it here and thrive in Florida. We shouldn’t just provide better opportunities. They should be able to thrive in our state.
“The freedom for seniors to retire with dignity, to know that they can count on Medicare, Social Security programs that they’ve been paying into their entire lives, and the freedom for women to make their own reproductive health care choices. I think that those are the top three issues. Top three issues that will lead me in everything that I do once I get to the Senate.”
Question: Many viewers have told us that they’re concerned about Social Security benefits and those not keeping up with their monthly expenses, the costs of living. So if elected, would you support effects to close this gap? So i.e. ending Social Security taxes and or changing the formula that calculates what those monthly benefits are supposed to be each year?
Mucarsel-Powell: “So the first thing we need to do is protect Social Security because I have been talking to a lot of seniors and they’re worried about that. And from a personal experience, my mom, her Social Security check is minimal. I mean, she lives with me, if she didn’t live with me, she wouldn’t be able to survive.
“We need to make sure that Social Security, we continue to make increases in the payments adjusted to inflation. I know that this administration did that, but it was still not enough. I do support, of course, not paying taxes. If you’re getting a minimum, a minimal amount in your Social Security check, you’re probably not going to have to pay taxes because you’re not at that income level. But how do we expand that coverage? And that’s the question. And it’s a revenue question. Where can we get the revenue stream to be able to support our seniors living in the state?”
Feena Bonoan (L) - Campaign website
Feena Bonoan did not respond to email invitations to complete the News 6 questionnaire. If responses are received, they will be added to this space.
According to her campaign website, “Bonoan has been actively involved in various community, veteran, and libertarian organizations, advocating for civil liberties, privacy rights, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. Her ability to articulate libertarian principles in a way that resonates with a broad audience has made her a sought-after speaker and commentator on issues of economic freedom, individual rights, and government transparency.”
Ben Everidge (NPA) - Campaign Website
Ben Everidge sent back the following responses to our questionnaire.
Responses are presented exactly as submitted, with no editing.
Question: What expertise will you be able to bring to Congress if elected?
Everidge: “If elected to Congress, my most valued expertise would be my proven ability to collaborate across partisan boundaries and problem-solve innovatively. I have a track record of working with Democrats and Republicans in both the public and private sectors, ensuring that all voices are heard and considered in the decision-making process.
During my career, I have worked on professional, personal office, and campaign staff in the United States Senate and U.S. House for a decade, earned a master’s degree in American government from Georgetown University, where I was also a University Fellow, been a for-profit and non-profit business executive for more than 30 years, and raised a family with four children all born in Florida. As a result, I have gained responsive and creative skills that help large numbers of people and projects that might not otherwise benefit under normal circumstances.
As a politically independent, fiscally conservative, and socially rational person, I value collaboration and have worked with many sides to find answers to issues that challenge voters. This expertise and commitment will help me navigate the problems Congress faces and enable me to work for solutions that can and will benefit you and your family as your United States senator.
Question: What do you see as the three biggest priorities for your Congressional district, and how would you help your constituents with them if elected?
Everidge: My three biggest priorities for Florida in the United States Senate are working toward 1) a better life for Floridians, 2) a better democracy for our country, and 3) helping restore political sanity in Washington.
For a better life, I am proposing legislative initiatives to create higher-paying jobs related to space, medical research and commercialization, revitalizing Florida’s film and entertainment community, transformational innovations and manufacturing, solar energy, sustainable agriculture, and more. Guaranteeing access to affordable healthcare and education and providing safer neighborhoods are also part of this focus.
For a better democracy, I have proposed legislation that would detail the ethics Congress, the Supreme Court, and a President must follow that would eliminate conflicts of interest such as trading stocks with insider knowledge, taking gifts from non-family members, providing easier access to voter registration and casting your vote, and finding solutions to long-standing problems that are beneficial to the most significant number of folks possible.
To help restore political sanity, I will work with members of Congress, whether they are Democrats, Independents, or Republicans, to constructively fix long-time problems that have consistently caused you and your family trouble. These include, but are not limited to, preserving retirement benefits, earning higher pay and benefits, reducing high insurance and healthcare costs, recovering from natural disasters, and managing illegal immigration, among many others. The following questions detail these issues.
Question: We asked our viewers what their top issues are in this election. We’ve listed them below. Tell us how you would vote on bills related to these three issues:
Everidge:
- Border security and immigration reform: “I would have voted for the Senate bi-partisan legislation this year that would have closed our open southern border with Mexico, added more agents to the field, and expedited review periods for migrants wishing to enter the United States legally. I will offer a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate that will prohibit any immigrant entering the U.S. illegally from ever being eligible for citizenship or work visas after a date that we spell out with certainty. I favor a path to citizenship for those already here if they register they are in the U.S., pay taxes in the meantime, and have not committed any crimes or civil infractions. I do not support automatic citizenship or amnesty, sanctuary cities, or public assistance to immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally.”
- Economy and the cost of living: “I am opposed to inflationary federal actions such as tariffs. I prefer the free market to be more competitive with overseas producers and reject price controls that are unfair and uneven in their application. I will fight to significantly reduce regulations in our overly regulated society and work toward a balanced federal budget by making strategic expenditure cuts and adopting a fair flat tax that will treat all Americans and all U.S. enterprises equally. Our economy and cost of living can be improved by continuing to work to make America energy independent, restoring healthcare and insurance affordability, offering construction and first-time home purchasing credits, lowering federal interest rates on student debt, and reducing drug prices to the same level as those charged in other countries.”
- Abortion: “I believe a woman should have the right to make her own medical decisions and support restoring Roe as the law of the land, as it was for 50 years before the Supreme Court overturned the previous Court’s decision for political and not legal reasons. Parental consent for minors and abortion before the third trimester, unless the life or health of the mother is at risk, are reasonable measures. I also support Americans having access to contraceptives and encourage in vitro fertilization processes if a couple so chooses.”
Question: Our viewers tell us they are concerned that monthly social security benefits do not keep up with the monthly cost of living. If elected, would you support efforts to close this gap, i.e., ending social security taxes and/or changing the formula that calculates what those monthly benefits are supposed to be each year?
Everidge: “I am adamantly opposed to reducing or cutting seniors’ Social Security and Medicare benefits. The program can be made fiscally sound with prudent fiscal decisions on our federal budget and debt. Also, I support ending social security taxes for seniors 62 and older.
Monthly benefits should be increased by a formula that better addresses the actual cost of living each year and considers how much a senior citizen has paid into the system over their working lifetime. That ratio needs to be revised today in favor of the retiree. Those resulting benefits would help the American economy and not hamper it.”
Question: Another issue voters care about is the cost of insurance, health insurance, property insurance and auto insurance. What can you do at the federal level to help bring down the cost of insurance?
Everidge: “Florida pays a proportionately higher percentage of its insurance costs than other states in the nation, and this is an unfair business practice by insurance companies, including health, property, and auto.
Individual states have mandated the insurance business since 1945, when Congress passed the McCarren-Ferguson Act, granting states clear preeminence over federal law regarding regulating insurance. Policy-wise, 1945 was a long time ago.
Coastal states like Florida are seeing massive, unaffordable rate increases that must be addressed. For example, these exorbitant rate increases have often left the Sunshine State paying more than four times the national average for home insurance.
To strengthen the federal oversight role of the insurance industry, I will introduce legislation in my first year in the Senate to amend the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, better known as Dodd-Frank, to have direct supervisory or regulatory authority over the business of insurance in cases where two or more state insurance rates exceed two times the national price average.
In addition to strengthening federal oversight and standards and giving Florida’s citizens access to more affordable, fairer insurance premium costs, I favor:
- Federally encouraging more competition for new insurance companies to enter the market.
- Mitigating risk and promoting more robust disaster preparedness.
- Providing federal reinsurance programs to cooperating and collaborating states.
- Expanding national insurance programs like the National Flood Insurance Program.
- It also prohibits insurance companies from writing insurance policies in any state where two or more states have insurance costs exceeding two times the national average.
Steps like these will help reduce your insurance costs to more reasonable levels.”
Tuan “TQ” Nguyen (NPA) - Campaign website
Tuan Nguyen sent back the following responses to our questionnaire.
Responses are presented exactly as submitted, with no editing.
Question: What expertise will you be able to bring to Congress if elected?
Nguyen: “I have lived through the Vietnam War and its aftermath, I have experienced warfare and understand the cost of wars — especially after the American withdrawal — which many American service members do not have a fair understanding of (since they have left the scene). I have also lived under the Vietnamese communist regime in the eight ensuing years and witnessed their atrocities. I truly understand life under a communist regime. My knowledge is actual experience over more than 8 years and not from a textbook or a research paper. Once I managed to flee the Vietnamese communist regime, I happened to have a chance to visit, study, and work in more than 30 countries and hence acquired a broad understanding of different systems of government and state institutions (including health care and education systems). I strongly believe I will be a definite asset to deal with important issues at the national level and in the arena of international affairs in the Senate.”
Question: What do you see as the three biggest priorities for your Congressional district, and how would you help your constituents with them if elected?
Nguyen: “I am running for US Senate, hence, my priorities are geared towards national-level issues such as immigration, foreign policy.”
Question: We asked our viewers what their top issues are in this election. We’ve listed them below. Tell us how you would vote on bills related to these three issues:
Nguyen:
- Border security and immigration reform: “My number one priority is securing the border and immigration reform. Not only will I vote for it but I have proposed a blueprint on how to secure the border and implement immigration reform at my website.”
- Economy and the cost of living: “Inflation has severely impacted ordinary Americans’ lives. Floridians have experienced rising costs including housing costs. To address inflation, public spending should be controlled and reduced. Congress should carefully review and approve the budget. I will also introduce bills to provide incentives for affordable housing development to address the increasing housing cost — especially in Florida.”
- Abortion: “I have remained neutral regarding binary questions on abortion (YES/NO). because I want to provide an elaborate answer as follows: I currently have no plan to propose additional laws regarding abortion. However, if an abortion-related bill is to be presented to the U.S. Senate, I prefer that a female Senator will introduce such a bill. I will surely vote against any bill forbidding abortion in case of rape, incest and when expectant mothers’ life is in danger. I also will not make abortion easier than the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 (Roe.v.Wade).”
Question: Our viewers tell us they are concerned that monthly social security benefits do not keep up with the monthly cost of living. If elected, would you support efforts to close this gap, i.e., ending social security taxes and/or changing the formula that calculates what those monthly benefits are supposed to be each year?
Nguyen: “I will surely vote to protect social security benefits because they are the only source of income for many of our senior citizens. There are several alternatives to secure this source of income. As an independent senator, I am open to considering proposals from both parties to address the needs of ordinary American citizens instead of resorting to partisan fights, thus de-prioritizing American people’s interests. My immigration reform also includes an element to secure additional income tax from illegal/undocumented immigrants which could help contribute to the Social Security Fund which is depleting.”
Question: Another issue voters care about is the cost of insurance, health insurance, property insurance and auto insurance. What can you do at the federal level to help bring down the cost of insurance?
Nguyen: “One thing I need to make sure our voters understand is that businesses exist for profits. Insurance will not lower insurance premiums to incur losses. They must make profits. The federal government cannot and must not force insurance businesses to absorb losses.
“However, there are ways to lower insurance premiums.
“One way to reduce the rising cost of insurance is to allow and promote fair competition among businesses. We should bring down state boundaries that have allowed a handful of insurance providers to control their pricing within their respective state boundaries.
“On health insurance, today, most patients do not know the actual cost of their needed health care procedures until after the fact (when they receive the bills). Another alternative to reduce health care costs is to explore generative AI capabilities to allow patients to search through various providers and compare costs of health care procedures. Once consumers are informed of the costs, insurance providers are forced to lower their premiums accordingly while ensuring their profits.”