Rick Scott bullish on GOP retaking Senate, says Pennsylvania race ‘hardest’ for Republicans
Rick Scott, the Florida governor, is betting big on Republican House candidates in conservative strongholds like Texas, Arizona, Georgia and Florida. Photo: Reuters
Florida gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott is predicting that his party will retake the U.S. Senate by a “big margin” in this year’s midterms.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday in his backyard in Miami, the GOP nominee said he believes Republicans will hold onto the chamber between two candidates that could be in the race for weeks: Lt. Gov.-elect Mike DeWine and Rep. Patrick Murphy, a conservative from Pennsylvania.
“I’m not going to get ahead of myself. I know where I’m going to be in five weeks,” Scott said, as reported by the Miami Herald. “I know where I’m going to be in five months. I think I’m going to be in the top five or six as far as where I’m going to finish in the Senate.”
“I think we’re going to win — in the Senate especially — and that will translate easily to 2018.”
The Florida governor predicted the Senate will return to Republican control on Thursday when the vote takes place in the Senate in an 11th-hour attempt by party leaders to bring President Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general closer to confirming him. Trump has pledged to pick Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, whom he considers the most qualified of the federal appeals court judges he’s nominated for the seat.
If Scott’s prediction comes true, it would make him the first governor since the 1970s to pick himself as the first contender to win Senate races in a midterm cycle.
With all precincts reporting, Scott is up by about 1.6 points over Murphy and within striking distance of DeWine, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls. He is ahead of DeWine in the RealClearPolitics average of polls, with a 1.4 point lead from the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
The RealClearPolitics average of polls has the GOP nominee ahead by about 2.6 points.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who is seeking re-election, is at 11 percent in the RCP average of polls.
“The Republicans have to be focused on protecting their majority in the Senate,” DeWine, the lieutenant governor, told reporters
