Rick Scott seems to be widening his lead over challenger Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in the Florida Senate race one week from election day.
The latest poll, conducted by ActiVote among 400 likely voters between October 17 and 27, shows the incumbent ahead by 10 percentage points, a lead he hadn't got all month. Concretely, Scott got 55% of the support, compared to his opponent's 44%.
It is a much larger gap than previous surveys, which were as narrow as two percentage points in early October. Before the ActiVote one, a survey by St. Pete Polls among 1,227 likely voters and conducted between October 23 and 25 features a three percentage point gap: 49% for Scott compared to 46% for Mucarsel-Powell.
The Florida Democrat is seeking to fight back with a final campaign push, recently telling the Latin Times she feels "cautiously optimistic" about her chances. ". These races are always close, and that's why every vote matters, and that's what I'm focusing on," she said.
However, she still faces long odds, with nonpartisan forecaster The Cook Political Report labeling the race a "Likely Republican" one. She is focusing on healthcare immigration and preserving democracy as the main topics of her campaign.
If the Democratic challenger defeats Scott in November, she would become the first Latina from the Sunshine State to serve in the U.S. Senate. That role would add to a long list of already-notable achievements for the Ecuadorian-American, which include becoming the first South American-born member of Congress and the first Latina to run on a major party's Senate ticket in Florida.
She also got got a new endorsement from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the country's oldest Latino civil rights organization and a group that until 2024 had refused to endorse candidates.
The support now makes Mucarsel-Powell the first woman congressional candidate to receive such backing. The endorsement follows LULAC's support earlier this week for Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), running for an open Senate seat in Arizona against Republican Kari Lake.
LULAC's decision to endorse candidates, a shift from its prior nonpartisan stance, reflects what the organization's National President Domingo Garcia described to The Hill as "a critical time" for Latino communities:
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