Rick Scott did it again.
Powered by a highly-motivated Republican turnout and another $60 million from his vast personal fortune, Gov. Scott clinched a seat in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday and dislodged deeply-entrenched Democrat Bill Nelson from office.
Despite a record turnout for a Florida midterm election and widespread predictions of a Democratic “blue wave,” Scott won his third straight statewide election.
As of midnight, Scott led Nelson by about 56,000 votes, strikingly close to his 2014 victory by 64,165.
A supporter of tax cuts and President Donald J. Trump’s Supreme Court choices and a critic of Obamacare, Scott promises to be a reliable vote in support of Trump’s agenda.
His victory ratifies Trump’s political strength in Florida, the most important battleground state in presidential elections.
Scott’s win also gives Florida two Republican senators for the first time in more than a century, since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.
Scott will join Sen. Marco Rubio when he’s sworn in as Florida’s junior senator on Jan. 3, 2019 in what is likely to remain a GOP majority in the upper chamber. Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera is expected to serve as governor for five days.
Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.
