Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, refused on Sunday to say whether or not he plans to run for majority leader if Republicans take control of the Senate after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
“If Republicans gain the Senate majority, do you plan to run for leader?” NBC‘s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked the senator during an interview.
“I’m not focused on anything except getting a majority Tuesday night,” Scott responded. “Everybody wants to ask me about a bunch of things that are going to happen after Tuesday night.”
When Todd told him that his response was a “non-answer,” the senator once again said that he was “focused on what I get done Tuesday night.”
Though it’s not clear whether Scott plans to run for majority leader if Republicans win the Senate, he might have positioned himself for the possibility of party leadership after he decided to release his own midterm agenda for the GOP in February.
He has also criticized some Republicans for allegedly standing in the way of a Senate majority win. In an op-ed penned for the Washington Examiner in September, Scott described comments made by some of his fellow Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, about GOP candidates as “treasonous.”
“Unfortunately, many of the very people responsible for losing the Senate last cycle are now trying to stop us from winning the majority this time by trash-talking our Republican candidates,” Scott, who is also the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, wrote at the time.
“It’s an amazing act of cowardice, and ultimately, it’s treasonous to the conservative cause. Giving anonymous quotes to help The Washington Post or The New York Times write stories trashing Republicans is the same as working with the Democratic National Committee,” he added.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images
During the same month, the Florida senator expressed his confidence that his party will regain control of the Senate and that they will flip several key swing states in doing so.
He told Fox Business Network that he estimated that Republicans will end up with more than 52 senators in the midterm elections. He predicted that some candidates who were “barely behind” in the polls at the time might end up defeating Democrats in states such as Pennsylvania and Washington.
Meanwhile, Todd on Sunday asked the senator whether he will accept the results of Senate races.
“Absolutely. But what we’re also going to do is do everything we can to make sure to everybody they’re free and fair, and if there’s any shenanigans, we are ready to make sure—we make sure we support our candidates to make sure that these elections are fair and every ballot is counted the right way,” Scott said.
“But it sounds like you’re pretty confident that everything is going to be on the up-and-up, doesn’t it?” Todd asked.
Scott responded: “We’re going to try—we’re going to try our best. I’m so disappointed the Democrats don’t want to have voter ID, you have it for everything else. We shouldn’t have ballot harvesting, but I’m going to do everything I can to make sure this election is free and fair, and we’ve got to keep improving our election laws every year that we can.”
Newsweek reached out to the Republican National Committee (RNC) for comment.
