7 questions about the epic Rick Scott-Bill Nelson battle for U.S. Senate

One thing is absolutely certain about the Rick Scott-Bill Nelson race for the U.S. Senate in Florida: It’ll be an intense seven months until Election Day, featuring blistering ads, charges and countercharges and boatloads of money.

The race has been underway for months, and finally became official Monday with the Republican governor’s announcement that he’s seeking to unseat the Democratic senator.

“Rick Scott vs Bill Nelson. This will be long, ugly & expensive. Brace yourselves, Florida. Other than maybe an alligator hole in the Everglades, we will not be able to run or hide anywhere to avoid the blitz of political advertising coming our way,” Ana Navarro, the South Florida-based CNN and ABC News analyst tweeted Monday.

Here’s what else we know and don’t know about the matchup:

Who’s going to win?

The race is exceedingly close. Really, really close.

“Toss up,” is the rating from Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia. Two other big independent rankings give an ever-so-slight edge to Nelson. “Lean Democratic,” is rating from the Cook Political Report.

Inside Elections has the race at “Tilt Democratic.”

Either the Republican governor, who is barred from running for re-election because of term limits, or the Democratic senator, who is seeking his fourth term, could win.

Florida is more of a politically purple state than Republican red or Democratic blue. And it has a history of extremely tight statewide elections, with the winners and losers of marquee races sometimes just 1 or 2 percentage points apart.

What do the polls say?

The race is neck-and-neck. Seven polls released in the past 10 weeks have an average of 42.7 percent for Scott and 41.9 percent for Nelson, a difference of just eight-tenths of a percentage point.

In an evenly split state in a highly polarized environment, each is viewed favorably by his party’s base. The overall result is that neither politician is rated favorably by more than half the voters.

A Feb. 27 survey from Quinnipiac University found Scott was rated positively by 49 percent of Florida voters surveyed and unfavorably by 40 percent, a net positive of 9 percentage points. Nelson was viewed favorably by 48 percent of voters by Quinnipiac and unfavorably by 34 percent, a net positive of 14 percentage points.

One caveat: It pays to be cautious about polling so far in advance of an election.

What’s the Donald Trump effect?

“Yuge,” in the word the president used to use all the time.

First, Trump repeatedly, publicly and strongly urged Scott to run. Scott attached himself to Trump early in the presidential campaign, and he’s rarely separated himself from the president (though he has slightly more as the Senate announcement approached.)

Trump won Florida in 2016, so if his voters are motivated and turn out to vote in November, that could be good for Scott.

But Trump won the state narrowly.

And the party of the president almost always loses seats in the Senate and House in the in the midterm elections between presidential contests. In the past two decades, the president’s party has averaged a loss of two U.S. Senate seats in each midterm.

And Trump’s low approval ratings from the public — though he’s performing better in Florida than nationally — portends a poor showing for the party that controls the White House.

Turnout falls in midterm elections for both parties, but the decrease tends to be greater for Democrats, which isn’t good for Nelson. But Democrats are heartened by the backlash to Trump which has generated lots of energy on their side.

Who has the money edge?

On paper, as of now, Nelson has the edge. Practically speaking, Scott has the advantage.

Nelson has raised more than $10 million, and so far spent $3 million, on the 2018 Senate race.

Scott, through a federal super political action committee, has raised $1.2 million that can be spent to support his Senate candidacy.

It costs a fortune to run for U.S. Senate in Florida, a megastate with 10 television markets. In 2000, when Nelson was first elected to the Senate, total spending — including from outside political groups — in the race was $19.3 million, the Center for Responsive Politics reported. In Nelson’s 2012 re-election, spending swelled to $52.8 million. By 2016, when U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., won re-election, total spending on the Senate contest was $110.5 million.

Nelson will have to rely heavily on outside groups and the Democratic Party to come up with the cash to keep him competitive. The Washington, D.C., news organization The Hill reported that “the Florida Senate race is looming as a money pit for the Democratic Party.”

Scott, who is wealthy, has shown he’s willing to spend heavily from his own fortune ($86 million in 2010 and 2014) on his campaigns.

What are the big issues?

Scott will repeat the theme he has pushed through his entire time as governor: the recovery from the Great Recession. His mantra since 2010 has been jobs, and the state’s unemployment rate is at rock bottom levels.

Democrats want voters to blame Scott for the things that have gone wrong during his time and office. They’ll repeatedly remind voters about calamities as the 2017 Hollywood nursing home deaths during Hurricane Irma and last month’s bridge collapse at Florida International University.

In the aftermath of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, gun control could play a role. Scott has been a longtime champion of National Rifle Association priorities but supported some restrictions on guns after the Feb. 14 shooting.

Nelson has been a much stronger supporter of gun controls, but Scott has already mocked the senator for achieving nothing on the issue during his time in office.

It’s unclear if Scott has done enough to satisfy voters, who polling shows are much closer to Nelson on gun issues, and if he’s done so much on guns that NRA supporters will shun him.

What do their past elections tell us?

Scott was unknown in Florida politics before he announced his campaign for governor in 2010, and he spent heavily to take advantage of the anti-establishment tea party wave that propelled him to the Republican nomination over then Attorney General Bill McCollum, who was the insiders’ favorite.

Scott then benefited from the tea party energy and voter unrest during the first midterm election of Democratic President Barack Obama’s presidency.

He doesn’t have either of those factors at work this year.

Nelson is an enduring name in Florida politics for decades. He’s been called the luckiest man in Florida politics because the two times he’s sought re-election, in 2006 and 2012, he’s faced off against Republican nominees — Katherine Harris and Connie Mack IV — who had famous political names, but were exceedingly poorly performing candidates.

Does it make any difference who wins?

It could have an enormous impact on national policy. Currently the Senate has 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats.

Democrats have a tough task in 2018 because they’re defending 24 seats, plus the two independents. Republicans are defending nine seats.

Ten of the states Democrats are defending, including Florida, are states Trump won in 2016.

Six of the Senate seats up this year are rated toss-ups by Sabato’s Crystal Ball — four Democrats and two Republicans.

.ss-blurb-fblike{
padding-left:10px;
}
.ss-blurb-fblike-heading {
font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
font-weight: bold;
}

aman@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4550 or Twitter @browardpolitics