The annual 10-day hunt, which started more than a decade ago, promotes public awareness of issues with invasive species in Florida while engaging the public in Everglades conversation, said Sarah Funck, the wildlife impact management section leader with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“They are a well-established invasive species across much of South Florida, unfortunately, in our natural areas,” Funck said of Burmese pythons. “A huge part of this challenge is to make sure that people understand about this issue and understand that in general, when you have a non-native species present in the state for whatever purpose, don’t let it loose, that can be really detrimental to our environment.”

Over the past decade, the python challenge has grabbed headlines for its incentive-based, only-in-Florida style of hunting as well as celebrity participation. This year, more than 600 people registered for the event, with two coming from Canada and 108 from other states.

During the challenge, hunters will linger around designated areas spanning through western Broward County to the Tamiami Trail in the Big Cypress Wildlife Management Area, including other management areas like Southern Glades, Holey Land and Rotenberger.

The goal is to humanely kill as many pythons as possible, and prizes divide between three groups: professional hunters who work for the state, hunters who are active in the military or are veterans and novice hunters, which includes anyone who is not working as a state contracted python hunter.

Each category has its own prizes, with $2,500 going to the person or team that kills the most pythons, $1,500 going to the runner-up for most kills and $1,000 going to whoever kills the longest python. The grand prize for the most kills in all categories gets a $10,000 prize.

Each person can only win one prize, so if someone is tops in two categories, they will end up with the highest-valued prize and the next qualifying hunter gets the remaining prize.

In 2017, the South Florida Water Management District and the state began hiring contractors to handle its invasive python problem year round. According to the wildlife agency’s website, through 2023, more than 11,000 pythons have been removed by these contractors.

Last year’s challenge brought in 209 pythons and the grand prize winner was Paul Hobbs, who bagged 20 pythons. Also during 2023, Florida wildlife agency and district contractors removed about 2,200 pythons.

Amy Siewe, the self-named Python Huntress, won a prize last year for catching a Burmese python measuring 10 feet and 9 inches (327 centimeters). This year, she won’t be participating in the challenge due to a knee surgery but said she’s not a fan of the annual challenge.

Siewe, who used to work as a state contractor catching invasive pythons, said she believed the initial intent of the challenge was to bring awareness to the issue. Now, it’s drawing large crowds of hunters, potentially scaring off pythons and potentially killing native snakes they mistake as pythons, like corn snakes, brown water snakes or cottonmouths.

“Pythons don’t take on their normal behavioral pattern because there’s so much traffic and they’ll come up and then they’ll go back into the swamp,” Siewe said. “I feel for myself, it’s counterproductive.”

Participants are required to undergo an online training, including information on how to identify Burmese pythons versus other snakes, Funck said. She said there’s also an additional optional in-person training participants can attend to properly identify Burmese pythons.

“That’s a huge part of what we do, is try to get the word out on how to identify these pythons, how to safely and humanely capture it,” Funck said.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Donald Trump marked his 78th birthday on Friday night by addressing a fawning crowd in Florida and repeatedly dismissing his opponent in November’s election, 81-year-old President Joe Biden, as too frail to handle a second term.

“Our country is being destroyed by incompetent people,” said Trump, who devoted large swathes of a jovial speech to poking fun at Biden. “All presidents should have aptitude tests.”

The former president addressed “Club 47” fan club members at a convention center in West Palm Beach, a short drive from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. As part of the festivities, organizers brought out a towering, multi-layered cake as audience members tossed red and blue balloons.

Setting on a gold-colored base, the cake featured separate tiers that included a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap and the Club 47 logo, an American flag, the phrase “Born in the USA on Flag Day,” a depiction of Trump golfing and the Oval Office fitted gold frames common in many Trump properties as well as Trump and Republican logos.

When Trump took the stage, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” and chanted “USA! USA!” The layer cake was just for show. But backstage, there was a sheet cake with vanilla icing that was served to some members of the presumptive Republican nominee’s campaign staff.

The event in Trump’s adopted home state sold out of 5,000 tickets at about $35 apiece, with closer spots to the stage costing $60, according to Club 47 President Larry Snowden.

“This is the biggest birthday party I’ve ever had by far,” Trump said.

The former president elicited strong cheers by listing his now-familiar campaign plans, including discussing immigration in menacing terms and pledging to reduce regulations, scrap environmental protections to stimulate domestic energy production and cut taxes.

Despite so often scoffing at Biden, even declaring that the president often “doesn’t know where the hell he is,” Trump also offered a seemingly contradictory message to his own supporters. He endorsed early voting, casting ballots by mail and also on Election Day in person, only to later note: “I actually tell our people, we don’t need your vote. We’ve got so many votes.”

Before Trump took the stage, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Byron Donalds, both Florida Republicans, helped warm up the crowd, gushing about Trump and his prospects for winning back the White House.

It was yet another strong show of support for Trump and came a day after Republicans in Congress sang their own rendition of “Happy Birthday” and presented the former president with a cake and gifts during a Thursday visit to Capitol Hill — displaying remarkable loyalty for a former president who was shunned by many of the same lawmakers after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.

Even after becoming the first former president to have been convicted of a felony, Trump has tightened his grip on much of his party’s base and elected officials. Next month, he is scheduled to accept his party’s presidential nomination for the third time — despite facing sentencing in his hush money case on July 11.

Trump referenced his conviction on 34 felony counts on Friday, declaring, “In the end, they’re not after me. They’re after you and I just happened to be standing in their way.”

Mary Lou and Sue Reardon both came to the event from the Villages near Ocala, about 240 miles (386 kilometers) northwest of West Palm Beach. Both were wearing U.S. flag shirts and matching “Birthday” headbands with candles.

“We just feel like he’s our last hope,” Sue Reardon said of Trump.

Biden will turn 82 shortly after Election Day in November. His campaign marked Trump’s birthday by compiling a listing of “78 of Trump’s historic… ‘accomplishments,’” with links to media coverage of policy proposals including “cutting Social Security and Medicare,” Trump’s presidency during GOP losses in the U.S. House and Senate and several references to his legal cases.

“On behalf of America, our early gift for your 79th: Making sure you are never President again,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer added to the birthday wishes.

By contrast, there was no hint of GOP disunity when Trump was in Washington to meet with House and Senate Republicans on Thursday, in his first visit to Capitol Hill since the riot, which was carried out by Trump supporters seeking to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.

Among those attending was Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who endorsed Trump earlier this year despite not having spoken since 2020.

Club 47 is based in Palm Beach County and says on its website that the club’s goal is to keep Trump’s supporters “in our area connected and engaged.” Trump most recently spoke to the club in October, days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Lydia Maldonado, a local Hispanic activist, said Friday’s event is unique compared to any rally nationwide with the former president and that Trump feels comfortable and familiar with this crowd since it’s his hometown.

“The purpose of having this event is pretty much to let him know how much the community here loves him and how much the community supports him,” Maldonado said.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Washington and Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report.

Gribbin was one of three people injured in shark attacks Friday over the course of about 90 minutes in Walton County.

In a post on Caringbridge.org, Lulu Gribbin’s mother, Ann Blair Gribbin, said the attack happened during her first mother-daughter beach trip with Lulu. She recounted the scene as “something out of a movie” and said her daughter was on a sand bar in waist-high water looking for sand dollars when she was bitten.

A man grabbed her uninjured arm, pulled Lulu out and was quickly surrounded by beachgoers, including two doctors and a nurse. The teenager, who is from Mountain Brook, Alabama, was then airlifted to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola.

“At this point we will have multiple surgeries in the days to come and our lives will be forever changed,” Ann Blair Gribbin wrote. “Lulu is strong, beautiful, brave and so many more things I can’t count. God has a plan for her, and we will be there to support her every way we can.”

The first victim in Friday’s attacks was Elisabeth Foley, a 45-year-old wife and mother from Virginia who lost her left hand and suffered severe injuries to her midsection. Gribbin, 15, was the second person bitten, and her friend McCray Faust suffered minor injuries to her foot.

Walton County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Corey Dobridnia said in a statement Monday that the victims are in stable condition despite “life-altering injuries.” Dobridnia also encouraged beachgoers to watch for beach flags and be aware of their surroundings in the water.

Authorities closed area beaches Friday and posted warning flags indicating high hazards on Saturday. Monday morning, yellow flags flew to indicate moderate surf or currents, according to the Visit South Walton website.

“We are guests in the Gulf,” Dobridnia wrote. “We all must accept some amount of risk when entering the water. That DOES NOT take away from these two ladies whose lives are forever changed.”

Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History’s shark research program, said he believed the presence of menhaden fish — bait fish that sharks are attracted to — may have led to the attacks. Globally, about 50 to 80 people are bitten each year and about five die, he said.

In Florida, the victims “just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time,” he said.

Foley’s husband, Ryan Foley, wrote a statement to their church, Winns Baptist Church in Glen Allen, Virginia, saying his wife is “hanging in there and has a super positive attitude.”

“Thank the Lord she is so tough and in great physical condition. Her faith is what’s getting her through, coupled with countless other blessings,” Foley wrote.

Yamilet Pérez Ríos, the 14-year-old daughter of Manuel Pérez Ríos, wept as she said she is now left without her father, who died in a bus crash early Tuesday north of Orlando.

“He went to seek a better life for me, for my mother, a week ago, and now they say my dad is dead,” she said.

Manuel Pérez Ríos, 46, was one of eight farmworkers killed in a bus crash Tuesday on the way to a watermelon patch at Cannon Farms in Dunnellon. He was a father of four children and had four grandchildren.

Early Tuesday, Bryan Howard, 41, crossed the center line of State Road 40 in his 2001 Ford Ranger and sideswiped a bus carrying 53 farmworkers, which then veered the bus of the two-lane road. The bus hit a tree and rolled over. Howard failed several sobriety tests and was arrested, the Florida Highway Patrol said.

The Tuesday morning bus crash is still under investigation by police. On Wednesday morning, Howard pleaded not guilty to driving under the influence-manslaughter charges in the deaths of eight farmworkers.

Marion County court records show Howard has had at least three crashes and numerous traffic tickets dating back to 2006, including one citation for crossing the center line. His license has been suspended at least three times, the latest in 2021 for getting too many citations within a year. In 2013, he was convicted of grand theft. A year later, his probation was revoked after he tested positive for cocaine.

The crash injured dozens of farmworkers, who were hired by a Mexican-American farmer to work on the watermelon farm under temporary or seasonal visas. About 16 farmworkers were taken to Adventhealth Ocala. Lauren Rozyla, a spokesperson for the facility, said 14 were discharged on Tuesday, and the remaining two were transferred to other facilities.

Dash and body camera video from a Marion County deputy showed dazed farmworkers standing in the field and several injured lying near the bus, as firefighters and paramedics went inside the large overturned vehicle.

Manuel Pérez Ríos was among six dead who have been identified, with two farmworkers remaining unidentified: Evarado Ventura Hernández, 30; Cristian Salazar Villeda, 24; Alfredo Tovar Sánchez, 20; Isaías Miranda Pascal, 21; and José Heriberto Fraga Acosta, 27.

About 44 Mexican citizens were on the bus earlier this week, said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Wednesday. Simón Pérez Cabrera, the father of Manuel Pérez Ríos, said that his family was poor and lived off farm work, which is why his son went to the United States to work.

Magdalena Rios, wife of Manuel Pérez Ríos, said this was her husband’s first trip to do farm work under a temporary visa in the United States.

“He had lots of hopes. He wanted to work,” Magdalena Rios said.

Gamaliel Marcel, of Tallahassee, said Wednesday that he was childhood friends with Salazar Villeda in Mexico. Marcel said Salazar Villeda was married in March and had a 5-year-old daughter.

“I feel so bad, especially because I knew him my whole life,” he said. “He was always the most respectful, but brought out a smile when you needed it.”

Evarado Ventura Hernández’s mother, Rosalina Hernández Martínez, said Wednesday that her son had told her the work he did on Florida farms was “very hard,” but that he was happy.

“It hurts,” she said. “A piece of my heart is gone.”

José María Álvarez reported from San Miguel Almolonga, Mexico, in southern Oaxaca state.

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Florida’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant, went into effect Wednesday, and some doctors are concerned that women in the state will no longer have access to needed health care.

The start of the new ban also brought Vice President Kamala Harris to Jacksonville, where she said the abortion ban is a direct result of former President Donald Trump appointing three of the six U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted nearly two years ago to overturn the longstanding precedent that protected abortion access.

“And now, in states across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors, punish women,” Harris said. “Laws that threaten doctors and nurses with prison time, even for life, simply for providing reproductive care. Laws that make no exception for rape or incest, even reviving laws from the 1800s.”

Dr. Leah Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist with Boca Fertility in Boca Raton, said the anti-abortion laws being enacted by Florida and other red states are being vaguely written by people who don’t understand medical science. The rules are affecting not just women who want therapeutic abortions, meaning procedures to terminate viable pregnancies because of personal choice, but also nonviable pregnancies for women who want to have babies.

“We’re coming in between them and their doctors and preventing them from getting care until it’s literally saving their lives, sometimes at the expense of their fertility,” Roberts said.

The new ban has an exception for saving a woman’s life, as well as in cases involving rape and incest. But Roberts said health care workers are still prevented from performing an abortion on a nonviable pregnancy that they know may become deadly — such as when the fetus is missing organs or implanted outside the uterus — until it actually becomes deadly.

“We’re being told that we have to wait until the mother is septic to be able to intervene,” Roberts said.

Besides the physical danger, there is also the psychological trauma of having to carry a fetus that the mother knows will never be a healthy baby, Roberts said.

“They’re feeling the kicks for months after they’re being told that they’re never going to have a live birth,” Roberts said. “And it’s just horrifying when you could take care of it at 20 weeks, and they could move on, and they could get pregnant with their next pregnancy and be able to hold their babies that much sooner.”

The Biden campaign quickly placed blame for the “extreme” six-week ban on former President Donald Trump.

“Trump is worried the voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He’s right. Trump ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America. This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with the women of America,” President Joe Biden said in a statement about the new abortion ban.

During her Jacksonville speech, Harris said November’s election is about the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell women what they are supposed to do.

“Because of Donald Trump, more than 20 states have abortion bans,” Harris said. “And today, this very day, at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night.”

Roberts said a huge issue with the ban is that the doctors who perform emergency abortions have to learn the procedures by performing therapeutic abortions. So if most abortions are banned, the next generation of doctors won’t be able to develop the skills needed to perform an emergency abortion.

Roberts said she is concerned the restrictions will also prompt veteran doctors to leave Florida, as they have in other states that have enacted abortion bans.

“We’re going to have less access to care for our general population, even if it’s just basic maternity care and normal OB-GYN care, because people are leaving,” Roberts said.

In addition, women are going to have to travel far from home to get abortions. Florida Access Network executive director Stephanie Pineiro said the organization, which helps provide funding for abortions, expects costs to increase dramatically. She estimates it will cost around $3,000 for a woman to travel to another state for an abortion. The closest place after 12 weeks would be Virginia or Illinois, but before 12 weeks would be North Carolina.

“It’s very emotionally draining and challenging to deal with these types of barriers and have to leave your home,” Pineiro said.

The Florida Supreme Court, with five of its seven members appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruled 6-1 last month to uphold the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which cleared the way for the six-week ban. The 15-week ban, signed by DeSantis in 2022, had been enforced while it was challenged in court. The six-week ban, passed by the Legislature a year later, was written so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was upheld.

Republican state Sen. Erin Grall, who sponsored the six-week ban, previously said bodily autonomy should not include abortions.

“We live in a time where the consequences of our actions are an afterthought and convenience has been substitution for responsibility,” Grall said, “and this is unacceptable when it comes to the protection of the most vulnerable.”

Voters may be able to enshrine abortion rights in Florida’s constitution after a separate state Supreme Court ruling allowed a proposed constitutional amendment to be on the November ballot. The proposal says, “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” It provides for one exception that is already in the state constitution: Parents must be notified before their minor children can get an abortion.

Florida Democrats hope young voters would vote to enshrine abortion rights, as a way to combat the 900,000 voter registration edge Republicans have over Democrats in the state. They hope moderate views of the ballot initiative will turn out younger voters to vote Democrat when faced with the binary choice between a six-week abortion ban or protecting abortion until viability.

Jayden D’Onofrio, chairman of the Florida Future Leaders political action committee, said young Florida voters have a “real opportunity to shape the electoral landscape.” Being that abortion rights have prevailed in elections nationwide, he thinks that Florida can engage young voters to register and vote for Democrats.

Nathan Mitchell, president of Florida Atlantic University College Republicans, said he would support a total abortion ban, and he hopes the amendment doesn’t pass. Mitchell said he’s seen most people want restrictions on abortion, usually for bans within 10 to 15 weeks of gestation.

Most Republican-controlled states have adopted bans or restrictions on abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. A survey of abortion providers conducted for the Society of Family Planning, which advocates for abortion access, found that Florida had the second-largest increase in the total number of abortions provided since the decision. The state’s data shows that more than 7,700 women from other states received abortions in Florida in 2023.

Florida Democratic leaders are encouraging women to seek help from abortion funds and resources. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book encouraged women to access abortion travel funds and urged them to avoid “taking matters into your own hands.”

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Matat reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Nancy Benac contributed to this report from Washington.

Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira are charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents at the former president’s Palm Beach estate. All three have pleaded not guilty.

Lawyers for Nauta and De Oliveira asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon during a Friday afternoon hearing to throw out the charges they face, a request opposed by special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which brought charges against them and Trump. The judge did not immediately rule.

The two Trump aides are not charged with illegally storing the documents but rather with helping Trump obstruct government efforts to get them back.

Prosecutors say that Nauta, in 2022, moved dozens of boxes from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to Trump’s residence in an apparent effort to prevent their return to the government, and that he and De Oliveira conspired with Trump to try to delete surveillance video that showed the movement of the boxes and that was being sought by the FBI.

Defense lawyers have disputed that accusation. Lawyers for the men argue that there is no allegation that either man knew that the boxes contained sensitive government records.

“The Superseding Indictment does not allege that Mr. De Oliveira ever saw a classified document. It does not allege that Mr. De Oliveira was aware of the presence of any classified documents in the boxes that he moved,” lawyers for De Oliveira wrote in court filings, adding that there was no evidence he was aware of any government investigation at the time he helped move boxes in the property.

“The only person benefiting from these acts was former President Trump,” a lawyer for Nauta, Stanley Woodward, said in court Friday.

Trump, Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, has separately filed multiple motions seeking to dismiss charges against him. Cannon has denied two that were argued last month — one that said the Espionage Act statute at the heart of the case was unconstitutionally vague, the other that asserted that Trump was entitled under a 1978 law called the Presidential Records Act to retain the classified files as his personal property after he left the White House following his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

Tucker reported from Washington.

Scott, who is seeking reelection this fall, was one of multiple senators who followed former President Donald Trump’s lead in softening GOP messaging on abortion. It comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion and leaving the matter for states to decide. Democrats, buoyed by a series of wins in state ballot initiatives and other contests since then, have made it clear that they hope to put the issue front and center this November.

After the Florida Supreme Court approved the abortion amendment for November’s ballot, Scott said in a statement that he believes in “reasonable limits placed on abortion” and is focused on ensuring that in vitro fertilization treatments are protected and adoptions are more affordable.

“We all know that life is the greatest gift we have ever received, we want to welcome every unborn baby into life, and we prefer adoption over abortion,” Scott said.

Scott is softening his messaging amid roiling politics on abortion across the country. The Arizona Supreme Court decided Tuesday that state officials can enforce an 1864 law criminalizing all abortions except when a woman’s life is at stake.

Florida Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing not only to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s Constitution but to invoke the issue in their efforts to unseat Scott and other Republicans. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, one of the leading Democrats seeking her party’s nomination against Scott, said the fight was over the “basic dignity for a woman to be able to make that choice of her own body, of when and how to start a family.”

Mucarsel-Powell said in an interview after Florida’s court ruling last week that voting to support the state’s abortion rights amendment in November isn’t the end game. She said voters need to vote Scott out of office so he “doesn’t have a say on what happens to women.”

Once seen as the quintessential swing state, Florida has become more conservative in recent years. Trump won there in 2016 and 2020, but Democrats, which trail in registration numbers by some 800,000 voters, are hoping a focus on abortion rights will swing the state back in their favor.

Scott has been flagged by national Democrats as a prime target this year in their efforts to preserve a narrow majority in the Senate, though Democrats are defending more seats than Republicans. The stakes are especially high for Scott, who said last month that he is “seriously considering” running for Senate leadership. In 2022, he ran against U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell to be the Senate’s top Republican but lost with a 37-10 vote.

McConnell recently announced his intention to step down from Senate leadership later this year.

The court opinions from Florida’s Supreme Court included affirmation of a 15-week abortion ban and a trigger mechanism that would put the state’s six-week abortion ban in place by next month. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Florida women have higher stakes on the ballot than they have in years.

“The fight against these new restrictions on access to abortion will shine a brighter spotlight on Rick Scott’s long, dangerous record of supporting draconian abortion bans,” said Maeve Coyle, the DSCC’s spokesperson. “In November, Florida voters will stand up for women’s freedom to make their most personal medical decisions by rejecting this abortion ban and firing Rick Scott from the Senate.”

Scott’s campaign said Wednesday it plans to spend about $700,000 per week for a series of radio, digital, TV and streaming-services ads in English and Spanish.

Over the next several weeks, the campaign will release different ads aimed toward this key voting group, which has voted increasingly Republican in the past few election cycles. These ads will run in Miami, West Palm Beach, Orlando and Tampa — all which are major cities in Florida critical for his reelection campaign, Miami having the largest group of Hispanic voters.

The first TV ad was released Wednesday, with no mention of Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a former U.S. representative from Miami running to unseat the senator.

This week, Democrats have celebrated a glimmer of hope for this election cycle after the Florida Supreme Court approved an abortion-rights ballot initiative to be decided by Florida’s voters this November.

“In Florida, we understand how socialism suffocates the human spirit,” Scott said in the Wednesday morning ad. “That’s why I fight against the socialist agenda in Washington.”

Scott, like other Republicans, has often accused Democrats of leaning into socialism. This accusation has generally kept a rift between Democrats and Hispanic voter groups who escaped communist regimes in Cuba and Venezuela, which makes up a large portion of voters in Miami-Dade County. This traditionally blue county leaned red in the most recent midterm cycle, and it currently is Florida’s most populated county with more than 60% of its registered voters identifying as Hispanic.

Scott said last month that he puts a lot of effort into talking to Hispanic voters and finds that they care about the “same issues that everybody does,” like education, public safety and jobs.

“People that have come from to this country from another country, in a legal way, they came here because they wanted rule of law,” Scott said. “They want what America has to offer.”

Mucarsel-Powell, who announced her campaign last August, was elected in 2018. She was born in Ecuador and was Congress’ first Ecuadorian American and first South American-born congressional delegate. She lost her seat to Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Gimenez after one term.

Mucarsel-Powell said last month that she relates to Hispanic voters because her story is similar to “so many people that live here in South Florida.”

As part of her campaign, she does biweekly Spanish radio interviews to reach out to Hispanic communities. In these interviews, she often speaks to voters concerned about socialism and has accused Scott of promoting “misinformation.”

“I have seen firsthand what it looks like when you have a dictators take over,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “So many people relate to that. That’s why it’ll be more difficult — very difficult — for him to be able to really get in touch with the reality of Latinos that live here in South Florida and what we’re facing.”