Sen. Bill Nelson went to Democratic leader Chuck Schumer this summer with an urgent plea.

Florida’s Democratic Party was in disarray after the 2016 presidential debacle, the senator said, and he needed help from D.C. to prepare for a likely challenge next year by GOP Gov. Rick Scott, who’s spent at least $86 million of his own fortune on his two gubernatorial campaigns.


Anxious about holding onto seats — and aware that a milquetoast moderate who’s been in politics for 30 years might not be ideal in the current political environment — the Senate minority leader convened a meeting of party hands. Present were Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez, his aides and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee staff. They discussed reworking budgets and underwriting the Florida Democratic Party effort to help the three-term senior senator.

Nelson told the group that Democrats desperately needed to catch up on field staff in Florida, especially in the wake of the presidential and Senate race results last year that saw Republican-leaning voters flood the polls and took even plugged-in Democrats by surprise.

“The Democrats executed the 2012 playbook to perfection in 2016,” said one person who attended the meeting. Republicans “wrote a new playbook, and it was a better one. [Nelson's] point was and is that they didn’t stop organizing.”

Nelson is one of 10 Democrats up for reelection in states carried by President Donald Trump — and among the most vulnerable. A loss in Florida would all but relegate Democrats to the Senate minority for at least another two years; their hopes of winning the chamber next year are already exceedingly slim.

So Democrats have been targeting Scott as if he’s already an announced candidate. They’re airing digital ad buys against the Republican, launching early voter registration drives and coordinating sometimes-fractious progressive groups to boost Democratic voter turnout — a strategy that’s paid dividends in two local elections.

The all-hands-on-deck response to Nelson’s request speaks to the deep concerns among Democratic activists and elites worried about the three-term senator’s lagging fundraising and the difficulty of motivating Democratic voters in off-year elections. Nelson — who took a month off from fundraising amid the recent hurricanes — is redoubling his efforts to fill his campaign coffers, notably with a series of fundraisers headlined by one of the party’s rising stars, California Sen. Kamala Harris.

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Democrats don’t see much of a threat to Nelson if Scott doesn’t run, and argue that the main reason the governor is a challenge is due to his deep pockets. Scott, who is termed out of office at the end of 2018, is expected to decide on a Senate bid by the end of this year or early next year.

“We’ll all need to raise at least $60 million for Bill,” said one Democrat close to Nelson, and even then the incumbent would probably “get outspent by Scott by 2-to-1.”

Due to its size and 10 media markets, Florida is so expensive to campaign in that operatives say a week’s worth of campaign television ads statewide could cost nearly $3 million next year. As of the second fundraising quarter this summer, Nelson had just $5 million in the bank. Scott has about $3 million in his political committee, but he’s allowed to raise bigger chunks of money from corporate interests under state law as long as he’s not a federal candidate.

Polls show the two are tied in a hypothetical matchup.

Nelson downplayed the urgency of his conversation with Schumer and said he wasn’t special among vulnerable Democrats on the ballot next year. Schumer, he noted, has “got 10 senators, Democratic incumbents, in states that Trump won. So he’s doing this for all of them.”

Still, Nelson subscribes to the theory that you run unopposed or you run scared. And the 75-year-old senator — who served in the House and won two statewide elections for insurance commissioner before clinching three terms in the Senate — is pretty sure he’ll face opposition.

“The way I approach an election, I assume nothing,” Nelson said in April when asked about Scott. “I run scared as a jackrabbit.”

The last Democrat to face Scott was former Gov. Charlie Crist, a moderate white centrist like Nelson. After their 2014 matchup, Crist described the effect of Scott’s money and his formidable consulting team, OnMessage, as “a buzz saw.” Nelson can expect the same treatment, according to OnMessage founder Curt Anderson, who said he can understand why Democrats are worried.

“For Schumer and the Democrats, it really comes down to a numbers game: How do you get more seats if they’ve got 10 of them in states Trump won?” Anderson said.

“When it comes to the Senate, every state is the same. You get one vote for each,” Anderson added. “And so you say, ‘Wait a minute? Where’s the biggest bang for the buck?’ And Florida is really difficult because of how much it costs. You can get three states somewhere else for less money than you need to spend in Florida.”

And when it comes to dropping big bucks in Florida, Scott has an extra pot of money — his “Let’s Get to Work” political committee — in addition to his personal millions. Since the end of the 2016 election, Scott has raised almost $3.9 million and spent nearly $3 million on ads, polls and consultants.

Under Florida law, the governor can raise and spend unlimited dollars from corporations or individuals. If he were an announced federal candidate, his fundraising would be as constrained as Nelson’s, which is largely limited to so-called “hard” donations from individuals capped at $2,700 for each election.

So in delaying an official decision, Scott has an additional edge over Nelson in raising and spending money.

Privately, some Republicans have groused that Scott has frozen the field and made it impossible for any viable GOP candidate to file and raise money. If Scott decides not to run, they say, the eventual GOP candidate will be at a disadvantage.

Anderson said none of that matters to Scott, who is focused now on his job as governor.

Nelson has never faced an opponent as tough as Scott. He dispatched two easy opponents in 2006 and 2012 to keep his seat.

But the same is true of Scott. He won his first election in 2010 and then reelection in 2014 during the midterm elections of President Barack Obama. Though those were strong Republican years, when Democrats were at pains to distance themselves from a relatively unpopular incumbent. Yet Scott never won a majority of the vote either time, winning by 1.2 and 1 percentage points, respectively.

The 2018 cycle could be a much tougher environment for Scott and other Republicans. Trump is far less popular heading into this midterm than Obama ever was, according to polls. And in two contested local elections this year, a Miami state Senate seat and the St. Petersburg mayoral race, Trump has been a drag on the Republican candidates as Democrats have enjoyed Election Day turnout advantages.

Trump has privately and publicly urged Scott to run for Senate.

Nelson has also sidled up to one of the state’s most popular Republican politicians, his Senate colleague Marco Rubio. After Hurricane Irma ripped through the state, the pair went to events together throughout Florida, reinforcing Nelson’s campaign theme of bipartisanship.

In contrast, Scott and Nelson weren’t seen together after the hurricane. In a break with the typical non-political etiquette in response to hurricanes, the White House arranged for Scott to have an event with Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon and didn’t inform either senator.

Rubio allies said the slight made little sense because the senator is next in line to chair the Senate’s small business subcommittee and oversee McMahon’s department and its response to the hurricane.

“The White House wanted an event to help Scott if he runs for Senate,” one Republican familiar with the matter said.

Storm politics could cut different ways in a potential Nelson vs. Scott showdown. Nelson hopes the influx of Puerto Rican evacuees to Florida after Hurricane Maria will boost his chances in 2018.

“If they will register to vote, which I’m certainly going to encourage, because I can tell you among the Puerto Rican community in the greater Orlando area, they have been very embracing of my public service,” Nelson said Sunday in a San Juan press conference, according to the Miami Herald.

Since Oct. 3, more than 36,000 people from the 3.4 million-person island arrived in Miami International Airport, Orlando International Airport and Port Everglades. Thousands more arrived elsewhere in the state, which already has more than 1 million people of Puerto Rican descent. Tens of thousands more are expected.

As for Scott, while he initially received bipartisan praise immediately before Hurricane Irma hit, Democrats criticized his leadership after a power outage at a nursing home led to the death of 14 residents. They’ve also accused him of a type of “cronyism” for tapping a 29-year-old former travel aide, whom they say is unqualified, to run the state’s emergency management department.

Scott has accused Democrats of exploiting a tragedy and has reacted to the nursing home deaths by issuing an emergency order requiring generators to power air-conditioners at the facilities. He's also called for language to be added to the state constitution to help protect nursing home residents.

But Democrats say the tragedy revealed Scott’s weaknesses running the state, which may take on greater proportions as the recovery continues. Polls show that Scott, who was constantly on TV before and after the hurricane, had a boost in his approval ratings.

But Democrats predict it won't last.

“His mismanagement of Hurricane Irma,” said Democratic Senate Campaign Committee communications director Lauren Passalacqua, “only magnifies a self-serving record of putting Floridians last.”

