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Keith Gross launches GOP Primary challenge to Rick Scott [1]

['Jacob Ogles']

Date: 2023-04-11 17:29:17+00:00

Melbourne lawyer Keith Gross announced he’s running for U.S. Senate, setting up a Republican Primary with U.S. Sen. Rick Scott.

Gross has explored a run for months. Now he has formally launched his campaign with a video on YouTube and a live website.

“The people we’re supposed to trust in Washington have forgotten us, the people that sent them there,” Gross said in his launch video. “Our nation is in desperate need of real leadership because, at the end of the day, we all want the same thing: freedom.”

While Gross makes no mention of the incumbent, Scott has already announced he will seek re-election to the Senate for a second term.

Gross also seems to take a veiled swipe at Scott by describing himself as “someone that isn’t getting rich by riding fraud and corruption.”

That’s an apparent allusion to a $1.7-billion Medicaid fraud settlement by Columbia/HCA to the federal government. The hospital chain agreed to pay that settlement as it pushed Scott out as CEO. The incident has fueled repeated attacks on Scott since his first run for Florida Governor in 2010.

But like Scott, Gross enters a race for statewide office with a business resume, not a political record. The head of Gross Law Group in Melbourne, the lawyer has worked both as in-house counsel for businesses and as an Assistant State Attorney. When he first formed a nonprofit exploring his candidacy, Gross stressed his background as a “very wealthy businessman, worth millions.”

Another similarity, Gross’ bio leans heavily on his background as a self-made man raised by a single mother.

His campaign stresses a conservative political ideology, with his launch video recounting childhood memories of watching former President Ronald Reagan give a famous speech at the Berlin Wall. He said that speech first taught him the meaning of freedom.

He also calls freedom “the Florida way,” borrowing rhetoric from Gov. Ron DeSantis, a frequent intraparty rival of Scott.

While Gross’ website doesn’t attack Scott, the site for his exploratory organization does. An op-ed penned by Gross appears on the Advancing Florida website and attacks Scott’s position on re-evaluating Social Security.

“This isn’t a handout, it’s a return on our investment. Social Security is a promise made to workers by our government and our nation must keep its promises,” Gross wrote in February. “Rick Scott is untrustworthy and I’m not surprised that he is trying to sunset Social Security because this is exactly what you should expect from someone with his history.”

That’s an attack similar to criticisms from Democrats employed when Scott released his Rescue America plan for Senate Republicans in the Midterms. That called for all federal programs to sunset every five years to be reviewed by Congress. After critics slammed that as an attack on Medicare and Social Security, Scott said he supported continuing both programs.

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[1] Url: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/602409-keith-gross-launches-gop-primary-challenge-to-rick-scott/

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