Rick Scott raises over $3M in Q2, with double that for a super PAC

Florida’s junior Senator is holding his own with his likely Democratic challenger in November when it comes to fundraising.

“Senator Rick Scott raised over $3.1 million in Q2,” reads a statement from the campaign obtained by Florida Politics. “Additionally, a super PAC supporting Senator Scott’s efforts announced last week that it raised more than $6 million as of the end of the 2nd quarter.”

Scott is programming this money as well. His campaign announced “a nearly $400,000 ad buy that will air during the Republican National Convention.”

“Grandpa” and “Cowboy Up” will “run in every Florida market” to “remind Floridians of Senator Scott’s support for IVF and how he is working to change the status quo in Washington,” the Scott campaign says.

Scott closed the first quarter with more than $3.78 million in cash on hand, a relatively modest number not reflective of his campaign’s ultimate spending capacity. Of that Q1 money, the campaign had raised more than $1.1 million since the beginning of the year, spending just over $1.56 million. Other authorized committees poured in close to $1.07 million in the first three months of 2024.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell previously announced raising $4.8 million in the second quarter from 123,000 donations. Her campaign describes the haul as having “an average donation of just $39, and with nearly 60% coming from first-time grassroots donors joining the fight to hold Rick Scott accountable for voting against protections for IVF and contraception while backing Florida’s abortion ban with no real exceptions for rape or incest.”

Meanwhile, Scott also has the ability to self-fund, in contrast to Mucarsel-Powell, who brags she has “not a dime of self-funding.”

As Roll Call noted in 2018, Scott put $63.6 million into his successful race against former Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. He poured more than $75 million into his 2010 race for Governor, where he ran as an outsider candidate who toppled a Republican backed by many establishment elements of the party.

Polling of a potential race between Mucarsel-Powell and Scott has been all over the place.

In a survey released by Florida Atlantic University, she’s just 2 points back among likely voters, 45% to 43%.

That June poll presented a marked contrast to a previous poll by the same outfit that showed a 16-point race, and with a Florida Chamber of Commerce poll that showed a 15-point gap earlier this Summer.