![Rick Scott at Orlando Puerto Rico parade](https://floridapolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/screenshot-16.png)
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Rick Scott is launching a new Spanish-language TV commercial Wednesday touting his creds in helping Puerto Rico and featuring the island territory’s member of Congress praising him.
“As a Puerto Rican, I thank him,” U.S. Rep. Jenniffer González-Colón of Puerto Rico says in Spanish at a Scott campaign event in May, standing next to him and Florida First Lady Ann Scott. “He offered us, in the moment of greatest need for our island in 90 years, shelter, a hug and an opportunity.”
The 30-second spot, “Gracias” [“Thanks”,] is being launched on Spanish-language television and the internet, seeking to build on Scott’s efforts to support Puerto Rico and displaced Puerto Ricans who came to Florida following the island’s devestation by Hurricanes Irma and Maria last September.
The commercial is the latest shot in the battle with Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson for the Puerto Rican vote, a significant factor in the Orlando area.
In the new commercial, footage of that May event in Kissimmee is mixed with other shots of Scott at other Puerto Rican events, meeting with various people, sometimes in front of a Puerto Rican flag, and walking in a Puertan Rico parade in Orlando in April.
“Gov. Rick Scott will be a great senator for the state of Florida. I know that as senator, he will be better,” she states in the commercial. “Leaders like Gov. Scott of Florida are the type of people we need in Congress.”