TALLAHASSEE, FL—Stanley Campbell, Democratic contender to unseat Republican Senator Rick Scott, has scored labor union giant Florida AFL-CIO's endorsement ahead of the August primary, where he hopes first to defeat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for the nomination.
"Before the AFL-CIO endorsement, our internal polling showed we could beat [Mucarsel-Powell] by 80,000 votes. Now, it's over 100,000," businessman Campbell, independently wealthy, told The Floridian. He explained that the Florida AFL-CIO represents over 500 labor unions and over one million members, believing their nod of approval could be the extra push he needs to upset one-term Congresswoman Mucarsel-Powell in the Democratic primary.
One group under the AFL-CIO, the Florida Future Labor Leaders, wrote on Facebook, "FFLL is proud to announce an official Florida AFL-CIO endorsement of Mr. Stanley Campbell to represent Florida in the U.S. Senate race!"
He told us that this past weekend, the AFL-CIO invited him, Mucarsel-Powell (who did not come and sent in a video instead), and other statewide candidates to a Miami convention at the Grand Hyatt to decide whom to endorse. Campbell says they were given an 80-item questionnaire, interviewed by various labor union representatives, and then encouraged to give a speech.
"The only people that weren't in there was the NFL!" he joked, stressing the vast array of groups. "We all got to walk out to music—mine was 'My Shot' [from the Broadway smash Hamilton]."
Though Mucarsel-Powell didn't show up and did not score the endorsement, she is the apparent frontrunner to take on Scott, with recent polls analyzing only her prospective performance against Scott—not Campbell or the two other Democratic hopefuls.
This, Campbell says, is a mistake.
"A new poll showed Debbie within four points of Scott, but I don't know how you can get there and not have roped in 20 percent name recognition," he said, pointing to an April survey that found that 74% of voters had never heard of Mucarsel-Powell. He then questioned why the Democratic party is "shoving her down our throats"—claiming she is not the right candidate to take down Scott, a multi-millionaire.
Campbell, a veteran with a tech company that "merges AI with healthcare", alleges he can score at least 80 percent of the black vote—around 1.4 million people—and around 60 percent of the military vote.
For the campaign financing quarter ending March 31st, Mucarsel-Powell had $2.7 million in cash on hand, while Campbell had just over $770,000. In comparison, Scott had $3.7 million.
"The polling you see in the paper, I call those party derivatives," he added.
