Rick Scott Backs Trump in Rare Primary Endorsement, Snubbing His Own State’s DeSantis
AP Photo/Chris O’Meara
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) has endorsed former President Donald Trump, a departure from his longstanding habit of declining to endorse in primaries and yet another kick in the teeth for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
The news of Scott’s endorsement was first reported by The Messenger’s Marc Caputo, a veteran Florida political reporter, who described the decision as a product of Scott’s “strained relationship with the governor.”
When Scott first ran for governor in 2010, to say he was not favored by the Florida Republican establishment is an understatement. Virtually every single elected GOP official in the state and every official with the state and county party organizations lined up behind then-Attorney General Bill McCollum. Scott poured millions of dollars of his personal wealth into the race (spending nearly $50 million in the primary and over $73 million overall), quadrupling the spending of both McCollum and his Democratic opponent Alex Sink to bury them in an unrelenting ad blitz that was just enough for him to squeak to narrow victories.
Since then, “Scott has refrained from directly endorsing in Florida primaries and general has shied away from it in other states,” but this year his long-running friendship with Trump and static with DeSantis and his team have led him to break with that tradition, wrote Caputo, citing “sources familiar with [Scott’s] thinking”:
“Sen. Scott’s endorsement is a reflection of Trump’s strength in the Republican primary, his strong record on the most pressing issues of our time and his ability to beat Joe Biden,” said one of the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity before Scott made his support of Trump’s presidential campaign official.
“He believes it’s time to bring the party together and focus on the general election next November,” the source told The Messenger.
In 2016, when his fellow Floridian Senator Marco Rubio was also running, Scott waited until the day after the Florida presidential primary to endorse Trump. The difference this year is a result of Scott’s friendship with Trump that predates either billionaire running for office and a simmering animosity with DeSantis.
Scott has openly criticized several of his successor’s policy decisions, including DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban, rolling back some of the gun control measures passed in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, and DeSantis’ fight with Disney, with Scott noting that he “had a good working relationship with Disney when I was governor.”
DeSantis suffered another “blow” last month, wrote Caputo, when Florida State Rep. Randy Fine, who was such a staunch DeSantis ally in the legislature that he was the House sponsor for the bill revoking Disney’s special tax district, revoked his endorsement of the governor to get on the Trump train.
DeSantis’ ongoing struggles in the polls likely contributed to Scott’s willingness to shove him under the bus. The latest Real Clear Politics polling average has Trump at around 60 percent, more than quadrupling DeSantis’ numbers. The governor isn’t faring any better in the early primary states, with former South Carolina Gov. and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley gaining on him in Iowa (and both far behind Trump), DeSantis falling to third or fourth in recent polls in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and again miles behind Trump in Nevada.
UPDATE 12:00 pm ET: Scott made the endorsement official Thursday with a post on The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter.
“I’m proud to endorse [Trump],” wrote Scott. “It’s time for the Republican Party to come together, behind one candidate, and declare with one voice that we are united in our efforts to defeat Joe Biden and rescue America.”
Scott elaborated in an op-ed published at Newsweek and cited Trump’s massive lead in the polls as proof that “Republican voters are making their voices heard loud and clear” that Trump was their choice.
