Rick Scott expresses optimism about midterms: ‘I’m 100 percent certain we’ll take the Senate’

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he is “100 percent certain” Republicans will take the Senate in November.

“I’m 100 percent certain we’ll take the Senate,” said Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in an interview with Gray Television White House correspondent Jon Decker airing this weekend. “I think we’re going to have a breakthrough.”

Scott premised his optimism on the quality of Republican Senate candidates, naming Sen. Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Rep. Ted Budd in North Carolina, Herschel Walker in Georgia and former state attorney general Adam Laxalt in Nevada, among others.

“Just look at our candidates. I mean, look at them. … These guys have great backgrounds. And they’re working hard. They’re running good races,” Scott said.

In response to Scott’s praise of the Republican candidates, Decker cited poll numbers that put their Democratic opponents in the lead.

“The people that you’ve just praised so much in many cases are trailing in their respective races,” he said.

The Florida senator argued that President Biden’s low approval ratings in contested states give him confidence that the Republicans have a chance of winning, calling the president the “best advocate for why you do not want to vote for any Democrats right now.”

“This is a referendum on Biden,” said Scott.

He added, “I do know that Biden helps us every day. When he has a party for inflation in the day that inflation is 8.3 percent, that probably helps us a lot. When he continues to leave the border open, that probably helps us a lot. … If you look at everything he’s doing, when he says, ‘Oh, if you’re a construction worker, you’re going to pay off the debt of somebody going to an Ivy League school,’ that probably helps us win.”

Asked about abortion, Scott said that he is “pro-life” but believes in “reasonable restrictions and exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.”

“The Democrats have made abortion a significant issue, but they don’t want to talk about their position on abortion. Their position on abortion is, and it’s radical, they want to have abortion up to the moment a little baby’s born. They want to say a baby born alive, I can just sit on the side —,” he said.

Decker disagreed with Scott, saying he does not believe that Democrats have expressed such extreme views.

“That’s exactly how they voted,” Scott claimed in response. “They all voted for that. They all voted to say a little baby born alive they’re just going to let starve to death over on the side.”

The senator added that he thinks Democrats “have to talk about abortion” because, in his view, they are doing badly on other issues.

“They can’t talk about inflation. They can’t talk about job growth. We lost 242,000 full-time jobs last month,” he said. According to data released by the Labor Department earlier this month, the U.S. added 315,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.7 percent, compared to 3.5 percent the previous month.

Scott continued, “I mean, they can’t talk about the economy, they can’t talk about schools, they can’t talk about Afghanistan, they can’t talk about the border, they can’t talk about crime, because it’s all bad issues for them.”

Scott’s comments come as polls have shown Democrats in a strong position to retain control of the Senate.

Last month, amid polling that showed Trump-backed GOP Senate candidates including Oz and Walker trailing their opponents, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters that Republicans likely have a better chance of flipping the House than they do the upper chamber, citing “candidate quality.” Following those remarks, Scott acknowledged earlier this month that he and McConnell have “a strategic disagreement” over GOP efforts to win back the Senate in November, saying, “We have great candidates.”