Republican Rick Scott is projected to win a second term to the U.S. Senate from Florida, turning back a challenge from former Democratic congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and holding on to a key seat in the battle for control of the Senate.
Scott was able to win despite his support for a new six-week abortion ban and a property insurance crisis that has made Florida increasingly unaffordable.
Mucarsel-Powell had hoped a constitutional amendment question on the ballot to restore abortion rights in Florida would bring pro-choice voters, particularly women, to the polls, and once there, they would vote against Scott, too.
Scott, 71, is the former head of Columbia/HCA and made his hundreds of millions of dollars running the for-profit hospital chain, which by 2003 had paid a record $1.7 billion in fines for Medicare fraud after coming under federal investigation. Scott personally claimed the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself 75 times during his deposition with investigators — a fact that every opponent since Republican Bill McCollum in the 2010 primary has used against him without success.
He has spent from that fortune freely over the course of two campaigns for governor and two for the U.S. Senate. In the race against Mucarsel-Powell, he spent $20 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
See full results from the Florida Senate election here.
