Rick Scott endorsed by Mike Pompeo for reelection

Owen Girard contributed to this report.

TAMPA, Fla. – Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott was endorsed by former CIA Director and former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for reelection to the Senate Friday.

“I am thrilled to endorse Senator Rick Scott for re-election to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate,” Pompeo said. “Senator Scott is a proven conservative leader who has delivered for the people of Florida and America time and again. “

“As Senator, I am confident he will continue to deliver for working families and push back against Biden’s woke agenda,” Pompeo continued. “I hope Floridians will join me in supporting him!”

Pompeo was the CIA director under former President Donald Trump, from 2017 to 2018. Then, he was Trump’s secretary of state from 2018 to 2021.

“I’m honored to be endorsed by Secretary Pompeo,” Scott said of the endorsement. “I had the opportunity to work with him when he was in the Trump Administration and I appreciate everything he has done to fight communist China, support Israel and aggressively stand up for America on the global stage.”

“This week we are watching complete brutality against Israel and Secretary Pompeo has stood firmly in support of our friends in Israel and played a significant role in the creation of the Abraham Accords,” the senator said. “I appreciate the many decades of service he gave to our country in both the military and in his time in critical positions in our government and I truly appreciate his endorsement for my reelection.”

With Florida having trended deeper red in 2022, Republicans winning statewide supermajorities in the state legislature, and other officials like Gov. Ron DeSantis and the cabinet winning by nearly 20 points, Scott enters the 2024 election off the heels of a deep red wave.

Former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has filed to run as a Democrat for Scott’s Senate seat.

Mucarsel-Powell is a former one-term congresswoman from Florida’s 26th Congressional District in 2020.

Scott’s campaign argued that while in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell voted with Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., 100% of the time; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., 94% of the time; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., 93% of the time.

The former congresswoman’s campaign launch video consisted of attacking Scott for not supporting ”women’s rights,” cutting “taxes for himself” and a threat that he would take away social security and Medicare.

“I’m ready to do something about it,” she said as she highlighted the fact that she was the first South American immigrant ever elected to Congress.

“I’m not afraid to take on Rick Scott or anyone that doesn’t put Florida first,” she added. “And that’s why I won’t sit here and do nothing, while Rick Scott gets rich abusing our government, taking our rights, raising our costs and destroying what makes [Florida] great.”

The Republican Party of Florida recently blasted the Florida Democratic Party for their “glaringly apparent” desperation to push Mucarsel-Powell into the primary race.

“With Debbie joining the ranks, the Democrats now boast three failed congressional candidates,” the group said. “Their pleas for her to run underscore the party’s embarrassing decline.”

Other Democratic candidates include Matt Boswell, Jason Williams and Rod Joseph.

Scott also has three Republican primary challengers in Keith Gross, Dr. Joe Smith and Farid Khavari.