Rick Scott on ‘strategic disagreement’ with McConnell: ‘We have great candidates’

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), is acknowledging his “strategic disagreement” with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) over the GOP’s battle to take control of the upper chamber in the midterm elections.

“Sen. McConnell and I clearly have a strategic disagreement here … We have great candidates,” Scott told Politico in an interview on Wednesday, which was published Thursday. “He wants to do the same thing I want to do: I want to get a majority. And I think it’s important that we’re all cheerleaders for our candidates.”

Scott’s comments follow remarks McConnell made last month, when the GOP leader said Republicans have a better chance of flipping the House than the Senate, citing concerns over “candidate quality.”

“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different — they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell told reporters in Kentucky.

“Right now, we have a 50-50 Senate and a 50-50 country, but I think when all is said and done this fall, we’re likely to have an extremely close Senate, either our side up slightly or their side up slightly,” McConnell added.

The “candidate quality” comment was interpreted as a veiled reference to GOP nominees for Senate who are backed by former President Trump and have struggled to pull ahead of their Democratic opponents in recent polls. The group includes Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Herschel Walker in Georgia, Blake Masters in Arizona and J.D. Vance in Ohio.

On Monday, however, McConnell aired a more optimistic tone, telling reporters in Kentucky — after he hosted a fundraiser for Oz, Walker and Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who is running for Senate in North Carolina — that the candidates have “a good chance of winning” their races.

Specifically on Oz, who has been at the center of a number of controversies, McConnell said he has “great confidence” in the candidate, adding “I think Oz has a great shot at winning” in his race against Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D).

Scott argued to Politico that hurling “trash talk” at GOP candidates will hurt the party’s chances of winning in November and impair its ability to fundraise.

“If you trash talk our candidates … you hurt our chances of winning, and you hurt our candidates’ ability to raise money,” Scott said. “I know they’re good candidates, because I’ve been talking to them and they’re working their butts off.”

In an op-ed posted to the Washington Examiner on Thursday, Scott said criticizing candidates shows “contempt for the voters” who put them on the ticket.

Scott’s jabs at McConnell over midterm candidates are not his first clash with the Republican leader.

In February, the NRSC chair released a memo outlining his vision for a Republican agenda should the GOP take control of the Senate come November. Among the tenets in the 31-page document was finishing the wall on the southern border and naming it after Trump, and requiring that all Americans pay some income tax.

McConnell distanced himself from the agenda, telling reporters at a press conference “We will not have as part of our agenda a bill that raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years.”

“That will not be part of the Republican Senate majority agenda,” he added.

The Senate leader has instead sought to cast the midterms as a referendum on President Biden.

The newest disagreement between McConnell, who controls a massive campaign bank account, and Scott, who is tasked with leading campaign strategy, comes at a particularly precarious moment for Republicans, whose odds of flipping the Senate in November appear to be dimming.

Historically speaking, the party that does not control the White House typically picks up seats in the midterm elections. But according to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats have better than 2 to 1 odds to win the upper chamber over Republicans.