Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s ascent to the governor’s mansion was every bit about the power of the Tea Party.

But as essential as they were to him in 2010, Scott showed this week that he’s ready to abandon them as he tries to pilot himself though the roughest political seas of any Florida governor seeking re-election in more than 20 years.

Scott was already showing a separation from the Tea Party when he proposed a bigger state budget and non-merit pay raises for public school teachers last month. But in declaring his willingness this week to now take federal funding through President Barack Obama’s health reform program to expand Medicaid, Scott essentially declared his aim is to rebuild his relationship with moderate voters at the cost of the waning voice of the Tea Party.

After all, ObamaCare — as Tea Party members called it — was a major trigger point in spawning the Tea Party movement. To the Tea Party, ObamaCare represents “all that is unholy about big government,” says Republican political strategist Ford O’Connell.

But like so many governors around the nation, Scott has figured out that he can’t win re-election with a fickle Tea Party base while alienating the centrist voters, said David Johnson, a Republican political consultant based in Atlanta. Even though Scott followed a hardline Tea Party agenda in his first two years, his approval ratings — even among Republicans — plummeted in public polling, Johnson said. And based off of the poor showing of Tea Party candidates in 2012, Johnson said it does not look like the movement is enough to carry candidates to victory.

“He’s trying to expand his base, because he knows he’s facing a tough fight with Charlie Crist,” Johnson said of the former Republican governor who is likely to run against Scott as a Democrat.

When Scott was fighting the establishment, the Tea Party’s anti-establishment views were politically useful for him. But now that Scott is the establishment and is having to try to solve problems that are more complex than campaign rhetoric, he’s got to find another way if he has any chance of winning re-election, Johnson said.

Crist’s strength is Scott’s weakness: moderates and independents. In a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll released in December, just 28 percent of independents said they approved of how Scott has handled his job. Even more troublesome for Scott is that Florida’s voter registration records show a record 25 percent of the state’s nearly 12 million voters are not registered with either major political party.

If Crist can win the lion’s share of those independents, and Democrats side with him because of their disdain for Scott, the race could be a blowout. Scott has to gain some traction in the middle if he is going to beat Crist, Johnson said.

In some respects Scott is following the traditional playbook in Florida by veering to the middle. Former governors Jeb Bush, a Republican, and Lawton Chiles, a Democrat, pushed their agendas toward the political center when running for re-election because of how evenly divided Florida’s electorate is.

“Rick Scott is protecting himself at the ballot box,” O’Connell said.

To that end, Scott can now show independents that he stood up to the Tea Party by trying to give teachers a raise and expand health care for the poor.

“I cannot, in good conscience, deny Floridians access to health care,” Scott told reporters Wednesday in explaining why he is accepting a key provision of President Barack Obama’s health care reforms.

It’s a delicate political calculation for Scott. If Scott moves too fast to the middle, he risks not just alienating the smaller Tea Party factions, but also establishment Republicans that were slow to warm to him in the 2010 campaign.

How narrow Scott’s margin of error is can be seen in his 2010 victory over Democrat Alex Sink. Scott won by just 62,000 votes out of more than five million cast in a Tea Party-wave election, despite spending more than $70 million.

While there are sure to be elements of the Republican Party upset over Scott’s changing positions, Sarasota Republican Party chairman Joe Gruters said the governor has been a strong enough fiscal conservative to hold together a GOP base in a potential showdown with Crist.

Gruters said a lot is being made of Scott’s move to the middle, but really Scott has been consistent in pushing a job creation message that has helped bring the state’s unemployment down.

“The Republican Party is with Gov. Scott,” Gruters said.