SARASOTA, Fla. (SNN TV) – Former Governor Rick Scott moved the needle – he was a different style of governor, and he had huge Republican majorities at his side.
Despite that, he faced resistance from Republicans in government and couldn’t always get what he wanted.
In the next installment of “Red, Purple, & Blue: A Sea Change in Florida Politics,” we look at what Scott couldn’t do, and the culmination of the seeds of the political Tea Party with the 2016 presidential election.
INTRA-PARTY TROUBLES FOR SCOTT
Rick Scott was a two-term governor, winning close elections in 2010 and in 2014 when Republican-turned-Democrat and former governor Charlie Crist ran against him.
Republican majorities expanded in the legislature under Scott’s watch. But he didn’t get everything he wanted.
“Often times what will happen is when you’re in a one-party state, you’ll still have little factions in a one-party state that break off and war with each other within a majority party,” said Dr. Michael Binder, a professor and Director of the Public Opinion Research Laboratory at the University of North Florida. “That happened a ton during the Rick Scott era.”
One such moment was 2013. After launching his original campaign for governor on opposing President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, Scott came out in favor of expanding Medicaid in Florida under the ACA.
A Florida Senate committee rejected the idea on a party-line vote. Scott would reverse course and oppose Medicaid expansion again by 2015.
“He had to spend the first few years [with] a lot of combat with legislature because he didn’t have those relationships [with the legislature],” said Nikki Fried, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party, “and he had to create them. During the last year of his first term and the four years of his second term, there was more [of a] relationship and interaction between the legislature and Rick.”
In 2018 after the school shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, Scott signed a bill that enhanced gun control laws and raised the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21. He did this with support from Democrats and enough Republicans to sign onto it as well. A bi-partisan win.
In fact, despite Democrats to this day wanting to defeat Scott, the then-governor did garner some respect from Democratic officials.
“I’ve heard from many of our mayors and elected leaders across the state that Rick also, behind closed doors, made those phone calls to Democratic leaders across the state,” Fried said. “He would make sure that if there something going on in a county, if there was a hurricane coming, if there was a natural disaster, he’d go into those counties and actually work with the local electeds. He was still big on home rule.”
GOVERNOR SCOTT RUNS FOR SENATE
Scott would run for Senate in 2018 against Democratic Senator Bill Nelson, who had been in office since 2000. And once again, just as in 2010 and 2014, Scott just barely won.
Scott spent large amounts of money, and Nelson’s campaign was inefficient.
“I spoke with folks who were doing some work high up in the Nelson campaign. They had been with him for 30, 40 years, right?” said Binder. “He didn’t have the youngest, most vigorous staff, and they maybe made some choices in campaigning that maybe a younger, more plugged-in, more involved staff [wouldn’t] have made.
Before his arrival in the U.S. Senate, and near the end of his two terms, the seeds of the Tea Party wave that rode Scott into office in 2010 would culminate in the presidential election.
FLORIDA, TRUMP, THE TEA PARTY, AND THE 2016 ELECTION
“I am your voice!” then-Republican candidate Donald Trump proclaimed at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Despite being a Manhattan businessman, Donald Trump ran a populist campaign in 2016, railing against what he called a corrupt system, with a call to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.
“Trump changed the game completely and tapped into something that was always there but not fully explored in the party,” said Zac Anderson, Sarasota Herald-Tribune political reporter.
“Guys like me, consultants like me, we had gone out and built a monster,” said Rick Wilson, founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project and former Republican consultant. “And every two or four years, we took the monster out of the closet, and we took it to the voting booth and said ‘Vote. Vote.’ And they would vote. And then Trump broke the lock off the cabinet and let the monster out.”
“This [was a] push toward white non-college educated folks and feeling like they’re being left behind,” Binder said. “Florida has cities by the beach and all that stuff, that’s true. But you get a couple zip codes inland a little bit, it looks very different. There’s a lot of old Florida here,” Binder said.
In a lot of ways despite a stark difference in ideology, Trump attracted the “Old Florida” that voted for Reubin Askew and Lawton Chiles decades earlier by pledging to “Make America Great Again.”
“And with that push to harken back to days gone by, that fits really well with that base of voters, generally speaking,” explained Binder.
Democrat Hillary Clinton’s historic turnout had her surpass even former President Barack Obama’s vote totals in both of his Florida wins in 2008 and 2012. But Trump still topped her in Florida in 2016.
“In [2022] you can look back and you can say, ‘Oh yeah, this is kind of the beginning of that [change].’ We’re starting to see the Republican Party shift a little bit, becoming more populist and bringing in some of those folks.”
Some of that would be seen in the next big election in 2018, with the closest gubernatorial election in Florida’s history, and one Democrat who would stop the party from being shut out statewide.
COMING UP NEXT WEEK
By the time of the 2018 governor’s race, Florida had trended Republican for a few decades. But after being shut out of the governor’s mansion for 20 years, Florida Democrats finally had all the excitement in the world behind their backs.
In the next installment of “Red, Purple, & Blue: A Sea Change in Florida Politics,” we’ll dive into the closest governor’s race in Florida’s history and the Democratic resurgence that wasn’t meant to be.
Be sure to catch “Red, Purple, & Blue: A Sea Change in Florida Politics” every Sunday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on SNN. You can watch all episodes on our website by hovering over “News” on the top of the page and clicking on “Politics.”