Alan Grayson said name recognition makes him the best candidate to take down Rick Scott

Former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson hasn’t made any splashy campaign launch for his U.S. Senate bid. But after a prior statewide run and congressional races dating back to 2008, he’s confident he can win the Democratic nomination and unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott.

“We have been carefully gauging and honing what we want to say to the voters,” the Orlando Democrat said. “And we have made a lot of progress in that regard.”

During a conversation about his campaign, the former Congressman still offers glimmers of the aggressive rhetoric that once made him a national hero among progressives during the waning days of Republican George W. Bush’s candidacy.

“I don’t know a single person in this state who likes Rick Scott,” Grayson said. “He’s a parody of an elected official and a parody of a human being, I think as soon as he’s done in public life, he will audition for the role of Skeletor.”

But Grayson in recent years has seemed more a frustration to Florida Democrats than a champion. In 2022, he lost a Democratic Primary for Congress to Gen Z candidate Maxwell Frost, now the youngest member of the U.S. House. In 2016, he ran for U.S. Senate but fell to former U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, who went on to lose to U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

Regardless, Grayson said every experience helped build a familiarity with voters that other Democrats in the field just don’t have. That includes former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, the money leader in the race and President Joe Biden’s choice to take on Scott.

“Every other candidate has close to zero name recognition,” he said.

Many presumed when Grayson first filed for U.S. Senate and didn’t immediately roll out infrastructure that he primarily was focused on paying down old campaign debt. Many didn’t expect he would qualify for the ballot until he paid a fee to do so during qualification week.

He brushes off the criticism, saying he’s had candidate loans backing his bid since his first run for Congress, when he unseated Republican U.S. Rep. Ric Keller in 2008.

As of the end of March, Grayson had nearly $98,000 in cash on hand. He’s put in almost $333,000 in candidate loans this cycle, and his campaign at the close of the quarter owed $3.6 million in total.

By comparison, Mucarsel-Powell had $2.75 million cash and Scott reported $3.78 million in the bank. Another Democrat, Stanley Campbell, had nearly $772,000.

He doesn’t dwell on his Democratic opponents, but notes he passed 121 laws his last four years in Congress to Mucarsel-Powell’s two.

He said plans are in the works still for a more high-profile launch to his campaign. From there, he intends to focus on voter registration to get more Democrats on the rolls and to the polls. He suggests the reason Republicans now enjoy a historic advantage in registrations is largely thanks to targeted purging of inactive voters by the state.

“Republicans in charge have systematically expunged Democrats,” he said.

But that can be reversed with hard work, Grayson said. He wants to register 1 million Democrats in Florida before the November election.

That doesn’t seem lofty to him. When Barack Obama ran for President, winning Florida in 2008, the former President and Democrats in the state, including Grayson, registered more than 200,000 voters. Bill Clinton registered 550,000 Democratic voters in the state during his presidency. In Georgia, Stacey Abrams has registered north of 2 million in a state half Florida’s size.

“We have candidates who stick to the formula of raising all the money they can and then spending money on 30-second TV ads,” Grayson said. “It hasn’t worked.”

With Scott atop the ticket, he said Democrats have the chance to reverse trends. He recalls a time Scott as Governor was booed when throwing out a pitch at a spring training game. He credits the incumbent’s record of wins to personally bankrolling runs, not to any particular connection with the people of Florida. Democrats, he said, can give candidates an option that motivates voters.

“If you don’t inspire and create a movement, you won’t win,” Grayson said. “If you don’t register voters and get them absentee ballots, you will fall short. You have to do both.”