Tensions between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) are spilling out into the open, with the Florida senator slamming McConnell for saying that MAGA candidates are “low quality.”
The Senate GOP leader — along with many other Republicans — has privately raised doubts for months about his party’s roster of Senate candidates and chances of recapturing control of the upper chamber in November. But with those concerns becoming increasingly apparent, Scott has begun to attack McConnell.
On Thursday, The Florida Republican penned an op-ed for the Washington Examiner in which he accused “the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle” of “trash-talking our Republican candidates.”
“If you want to talk about the need to raise more money to promote our candidates versus the Democrats’ terrible candidates, I agree. If you want to trash-talk our candidates to help the Democrats, pipe down,” Scott wrote. “That’s not what leaders do,” he added in reference to McConnell.
Scott’s op-ed did not explicitly mention McConnell, but his message was unmistakable, coming just two weeks after McConnell downplayed the GOP’s prospects of recapturing control of the Senate, pointing out the quality of some of the party’s candidates.
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate,” McConnell said during an appearance in his home state last month. “Senate races are just different. They’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome.”
As noted by The Hill, McConnell’s remarks were a public acknowledgment of a concern that has mostly been expressed in private by many Republicans. In some of the country’s most hotly contested Senate primaries, Republican voters have nominated largely MAGA candidates, who were endorsed by former President Donald Trump but have struggled to get their general election campaigns off the ground.
Read the full report on The Hill.
