Debbie Mucarsel-Powell Is Uniting Floridians “To Build A Better Future”

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell spoke with Elle magazine to discuss how her lifelong fight for justice led her to become the first Latina Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Florida.

ELLE: Will the Fight for Abortion Care Help Debbie Mucarsel-Powell Win in Florida?

• After receiving her master’s degree, she worked her way up to become the associate dean at Florida International University’s Colleges of Health and Medicine in 2008. During her tenure there, she oversaw a program to expand affordable health care to Floridians.

• “If you look at my story and the things that I was able to achieve…only in this country that happens,” [Debbie Mucarsel-Powell] said in a CNN interview just after being sworn in. “Only in the United States of America, does an immigrant like myself get that chance.”

• During her two years in Congress, Mucarsel-Powell served as vice chair of the House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force. She fought for gun control legislation, wrote a bill to expand Medicare coverage, and led on climate issues, specifically securing $200 million to help restore the Florida Everglades and introducing bipartisan legislation to protect coral reefs.

• When she officially announced her candidacy [for Senate,] she decided to draw attention to a different attack on Florida’s health care: access to abortion.

• Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in June 2022 that there is no constitutional right to abortion, the fight for reproductive rights has proven to be a winning electoral issue in the U.S. And with Vice President Kamala Harris newly leading the Democratic ticket, there’s been a burst of enthusiasm across the country, including in Florida.

• In Florida, the horrific mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland catalyzed the youth-led March for Our Lives movement. Mucarsel-Powell empathizes with the pain caused by gun violence, and she’s spent the last few years working with the Giffords organization, a gun safety group.

• In a state where 21 percent of people are immigrants, she moved to the U.S. as a 14-year-old. In a state that is 30 percent Latino, she is the first Latina to be the Democratic Senate candidate. “Can you believe that?” she says. “How is that possible?” If elected, she will become the first Latina to represent Florida in the Senate and the second Latina U.S. senator in history.

• In 2023, [Scott] said of the six-week ban: “If I was still governor, I would sign this bill.”  Mucarsel-Powell views both of those options as unacceptable government interference. “It’s so central to the health care of a woman,” Mucarsel-Powell says. “I just spoke to somebody today that said, ‘You know, Florida’s a pro-choice state.’ We have seen that [sentiment] in the polling.”

• “You are putting women through such trauma,” Mucarsel-Powell adds. “We know that this is going to disproportionately affect low-income earners, women of color, Latina women, and Black women. And you know Rick Scott and these other extreme politicians, they just do not care.”

• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell: “One of the things that I’ve been telling people is that it will mean nothing if we pass this abortion measure and enshrine it into our state constitution, and then Rick Scott gets reelected and does whatever he can to push for a national abortion ban.”

• “I’m a South American immigrant who went from working a minimum-wage service job to getting to represent my community in Congress,” she says. “I have hope, because I’ve experienced the possibilities of America firsthand—and when I travel across Florida, I’m meeting so many people who believe in those possibilities too. I’ve met Floridians young and old, of different political leanings and of different backgrounds, who are all united in the desire to build a better future.”