Phil Ehr banks $400K in less than 1 week in bid to unseat Rick Scott

Phil Ehr changes his mind.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Phil Ehr has raised more than $400,000 since launching his campaign to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, his campaign announced.

That total comes from more than 10,000 individual donors with an average donation of just $40, his campaign said. 

The campaign previously reported it had raised $100,000 in just 14 hours after announcing Ehr’s candidacy. 

“We’re building a true grassroots campaign and Floridians are showing that they are sick and tired of Rick Scott’s cowardice, his refusal to stand up to the growing tide of fascism in the Republican Party from extremists like Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, and his attacks on Social Security and Medicare,” Ehr said.

“I’m so thankful to each and every supporter who has made a contribution, and I’m committed to using these resources to build the kind of campaign that can retire Rick Scott and turn Florida blue once again.”

Using the #EhrForce hashtag on social media, the campaign said it banked cash from donors in all 67 Florida counties. Ehr’s campaign attributes its success to Scott’s unpopularity, a theory based on internal polling showing Scott with a favorability rating of just 24%.

Ehr officially got into the race on Monday with a long-form video introducing voters to his 26-year naval career, including rescuing Cuban refugees in the Florida Straits and undertaking humanitarian aid efforts in Ukraine. His fundraising totals are current as of Friday, per the campaign.

The ad, “Quiet Before the Storm,” also targets Scott, with references to his record of Medicare fraud, controversial statements about Medicare and his alignment with MAGA officials and voters.

He calls Scott — as well as Florida Gov. DeSantis and Florida’s Senior U.S. Senator, Marco Rubio — the “axis of lies” who are supporting former President Trump’s “war on the truth.”

“Rick Scott is a coward,” Ehr says in the video. “We can’t trust him in the battle for our rights, the truth and our future.”

Scott’s team responded with a statement expressing confidence that they would prevail against Ehr.

“It says everything you need to know about Chuck Schumer and the Florida Dems’ recruitment efforts that the best they can do is a guy who lost a congressional race two cycles ago by 30 points,” said Priscilla Ivasco, Scott’s Communications Director.

Until Ehr’s entrance into the race, Democrats’ failure to run a candidate against Scott had been drawing speculation, leading to reports floating celebrity names, including NBA stars Grant Hill and Dwayne Wade.

While the internal polling shows Scott underwater with voters by 28 percentage points, it also shows Ehr is struggling with name recognition, with a full 73% of respondents saying they didn’t know who he was. 

Campaigns often release internal polling if the numbers show positive signs for the candidate. In this case, a relatively unknown candidate in Ehr appears well-positioned to give Scott a fight. Asked who they would vote for if the election for U.S. Senate were today, Scott led with 43% support to Ehr’s 38%, a small margin when considering Ehr has barely just hit the campaign trail.

And when asked to choose, the 19% of respondents who said they weren’t sure about the race favored Ehr 15% to 11%, putting Ehr within 4 percentage points of Scott on a combined ballot based on the poll.