Mucarsel-Powell: “People are rejecting Republicans because they crossed the line into extremism”

If the Florida ballot boxes support her on November 5, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, 53, would become the first Latina immigrant to occupy a seat in the United States Senate. Ecuadorian by origin, she arrived in her adopted country at the age of 14 and her first job was in a donut shop. With the Democratic Party she reached Congress (2019-2021), but did not manage to be re-elected. After winning by a large margin the primaries of her party on August 20, she now faces the millionaire Republican Rick Scott, senator and former governor of the Sunshine State, favorite in the polls but with whom she is closing the gap. The murder of her father in Ecuador marked her career and gun control is one of her campaign priorities. Women’s reproductive rights, the extension of the Medicare and the reduction of insurance complete their electoral programme.

Ask. What impact could the Kamala Harris effect have on all campaigns?

R. The vice president’s nomination has greatly energized voters in the State of Florida and across the country. People are rejecting the extreme politics that we have experienced during the years of the Donald Trump Administration. Senator Rick Scott has used the same type of extremist tactics to attack and try to confuse voters, specifically Latino voters, with misinformation.

P. In Florida, Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020. Governor Ron DeSantis is also a Republican, and Senator Rick Scott is leading in the polls. The Democratic Party does not have an easy time…

R. We won in 2008 and 2012, with Obama. In 2016 the State began to go the other way. When you have a swing state (Swing State) This one is coming back, and that’s what I’ve been seeing in every county I’ve traveled through, both Democrat and Republican. People are rejecting Republicans because they crossed the line into extremism and the people who live here are much more centrist and more independent.

P. Since the Supreme Court ruling on the case of Roe v. Wadestates have passed anti-abortion laws in succession. The legislation passed by DeSantis is among the most restrictive. What role do reproductive rights play in his campaign?

A. Abortion is central not only to my campaign, but to all Floridians. It is essential to ensure that women have their rights, their freedoms protected and to protect democracy in the country. I am a woman. I have three children, two of them girls, and reproductive rights are central to their health, to their dignity… Latin American countries like Colombia, Mexico and Argentina have already approved the right to choose. When we have extreme laws, like the one in Florida, there are higher rates of violence against women and higher rates of maternal mortality. That is why those countries, which are more conservative, passed those laws. In Florida we are already hearing stories of women who are being told by doctors that they cannot help them even if they have a pregnancy in which the fetus is not developing and is putting their health at risk. A few weeks ago, a woman in Miami lost a lot of blood and almost died because of that law.

P. One of your initiatives as a congressman was to extend the Medicare public health program. What are the challenges facing public health today and what is your proposal?

R. My mother lives with me. I saw her work 12 hours a day, two jobs, to be able to pay for Medicare, Social Security, and what the Republicans, including Rick Scott, have proposed is to eliminate it. In Congress, I proposed a bill to expand Medicare coverage for seniors. We have to see how to expand that coverage and lower the price of medicines. In Congress, we worked hard to ensure that Medicare can negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. Rick Scott wants to eliminate the negotiation, which would mean that people with diabetes, instead of paying $35 a month, would pay up to $500. The challenge is to confront these companies and facilitate access to these very important medicines, especially for Latinos, who have higher rates of diabetes than other groups.

P. The budget is crucial in a campaign. In your case, you are facing a candidate who is a millionaire and self-financed. How does that affect when you depend on donations?

R. It’s getting harder. To win races in this country you have to have a lot of money. And there are no limits here. I’m facing a politician who has a lot of money and in America money dictates political communication. That includes a lot of misinformation, false attacks and those are the challenges I face. But voters have been supporting me with contributions of $5, $10, $20 and I’ve raised almost $15 million. Florida knows Rick Scott, who’s been here for 15 years, and no amount of funding is going to help him right now because his record is so toxic to Floridians.

P. Your father was shot dead. It seems logical that the issue of gun control is particularly sensitive for you.

R. I was 24 years old, working on my master’s degree, when I got a call to tell me that a criminal had murdered my father with a gun in Ecuador. That call changed my life and my family’s. I changed my path and wanted to work to protect our communities from violence and to have more justice. In Latin American countries, you lose your loved ones and nothing happens, there is no justice, we don’t have a strong judicial system like the one in the United States. I have met too many families who have lost their loved ones to firearms.

I worked at the Gifford Foundation to educate our communities and attract investment to reduce violence. There is a law that we have not yet passed that does not prevent people from purchasing their own gun, but it does require a background check. In this country, the leading cause of death for Latino youth between the ages of 14 and 19 is gun violence. We have taken steps to reduce the rate of cancer in children, why not take steps to reduce violence?

P. Venezuela is experiencing an institutional crisis and you have called for an international coalition to force Nicolás Maduro to leave power. What can the United States do?

R. Supporting Maria Corina Machado, who has been leading the opposition movement, and Edmundo Gonzalez, recognizing that he won the elections on July 28, have been correct steps. The opposition is the one who has to lead this international coalition to help them take office and return to the democracy that Venezuela had many years ago. We must include Spain and Mexico in this coalition, countries that are critical of what is happening. They have to get Maduro out of there, it is a narco-regime. There are many other ways to put pressure on him. We have Russia and Iran helping Maduro. We have to put pressure on Russia to get out of there.

P. You came to the United States from Ecuador when you were 14. Adolescence is not an easy age for such a cultural change. Did you suffer discrimination?

R. Yes. When I first arrived in the United States, when I heard people with a Spanish accent and I wanted to speak Spanish, many people didn’t want to. They didn’t want to have anything to do with Latinos or recognize the Spanish language, or be proud of their culture and race. For me, that was a shock. I didn’t understand why people were ashamed of who they were.

I had an accent too and they laughed at it. That has happened to many people who live here. But they underestimate us. When they meet us they see that we are people who will never stop fighting, we are hard workers, we want to contribute to the economy and we don’t want anything given to us. We want to have the same opportunities as other people who are living in this country. Now Latinos are the largest ethnic group that can determine elections and I tell them not to forget the power they hav
e.

P. How can we reach the Latino vote?

R. For us, family is the most important thing. Protecting our children, giving them a better future. Having economic opportunities is extremely important. I am talking about a project that I want to take to the Senate that would reduce the cost of insurance by 25%. I am talking about education, the environment… I am touching on the issues that are important to Latinos. We are not going to have everyone’s vote, because it is a diverse community and each person has their political affiliation, but when you talk to them about the issues that are important to them, they come to us.

P. The migration crisis has been the focus of the Republicans’ election campaign and there have been successive measures against migrants, such as the suspension of the program Words in place. It seems that anti-immigrant sentiment is growing.

R. Obviously it’s grown because extremists like Rick Scott have been using language that criminalizes immigrants. They’ve been blaming them for every problem we have. And the reality is that’s not the case. Everyone agrees that we need to invest in our national security, in our border security, in supporting our patrol officers. But we also need to take legal steps so that people can come and continue to contribute to the American economy.

We have to go back to the moment we had with Ronald Reagan, who was a Republican president who understood the contribution of immigrants. There are also people fleeing violence and we have a law to give them asylum.

P. The Latin presence in the highest spheres of political and business power does not correspond to its demographic weight.

R. There is no Latino representation like we should have. That is why I remind Latino communities that no one is going to advocate for them like I do, who was born in Latin America and lived under a military dictatorship. I want to be on the foreign relations committee to have a voice that we do not have right now. I should not be the first Latina from the State of Florida running for the federal Senate, we are in 2024. But I definitely do not want to be the last.

P. His first job was selling doughnuts. His rival in the election also had a business relationship with the same product.

R. I say I worked in a donut shop for minimum wage and Rick Scott bought donut shops to give his mom something to do. That’s the difference we have. I understand what it’s like to have to count every dollar to buy your first car. It’s unacceptable that we live in a country that is still the economic and military power in the world, the largest democracy, and there are families that can’t pay their bills, their education, their medicine.

P. After Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance campaigned at a doughnut shop, you posted on X that you didn’t think he’d ever been inside one because he didn’t even know the names of the varieties. Do you?

R. Of course. Devil´s foodwhich is my favorite, which is chocolate with chocolate, blaze, sprinkles and bear clawwhich I always loved.