WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott has his sights on a GOP leadership role, but first he must get past two candidates in the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday.

Scott, who won his Senate spot by a margin of about 10,000 votes in 2018, is aiming to run for Senate Republican leader to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

If Scott wins the primary, he would face a Democratic opponent in November.

The Democratic frontrunner is former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who got President Joe Biden’s endorsement in April and has campaigned for the past year against Scott.

The senate seat is not the only one in Florida to watch, since some of the state’s congressional races include the most well-known far-right lawmakers.

One such example is U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, who must defeat his primary challenger Aaron Dimmick. That race has been fueled by a barrage of campaign advertisements, with Gaetz accusing Dimmick of being a carpetbagger who moved from Missouri to the Florida Panhandle to promote diversity and inclusion. Meanwhile Dimmick has highlighted allegations of sexual misconduct against Gaetz.

U.S. Reps. Byron Donalds and Mike Waltz are also widely known conservative legislators. Donalds doesn’t have any primary challengers and Waltz is facing John Grow, a software engineer who may struggle to upend the conservative lawmaker. Waltz, however, has spoken at former President Donald Trump’s campaign events, made Fox News appearances and appeared at the Republican National Convention last month.

U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, who is also closely aligned with Trump and has staunchly defended Gaetz in the past, is defending his seat versus former Florida Senate candidate and veteran Mike Johnson.

Each of these congressional members are far-right conservatives in Congress, known mostly for their alignment with Trump. They’ve led charges to defend the former president, stalled appropriations bills and budget deals, upended former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and fought for stricter regulations on abortion access and immigration.

Florida voters will also decide contested primaries in most of Florida’s 28 House districts.

Among the higher-profile House races is in District 13, in Pinellas County along Florida’s Gulf coast. The incumbent is Republican freshman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a member of the right-wing Freedom Caucus, who faces no primary opposition.

Five Democrats are battling to take on Luna in the fall for a seat that leans Republican but could possibly flip parties. The leader in endorsements and fundraising is Whitney Fox, former marketing and communications director at the county transit authority. Others include former congressional aide Liz Dahan and former Health and Human Services Department adviser Sabrina Bousbar.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Florida Department of Education (FDOE) and the state’s largest teachers union are at odds over the framing of teacher vacancies in public schools.

The Florida Department of Education announced Monday that teacher vacancies for the 2024-2025 school year are 13.3% lower than first-day vacancies for the 2023-2024 school year. Schools have reported 1.11 teacher vacancies per school, lower than last year’s average of 1.28 vacancies per school, according to the FDOE. This year’s 13.3% drop in vacancies follows last year’s drop of over 8% in comparison to the previous year.

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“Florida has raised teacher pay, supported teachers in the classroom and created new pathways for qualified individuals to enter the teaching profession,” Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz, Jr. said in a news release. “While the naysayers use the same tactics year after year to discredit Florida’s success in Education, once again the numbers speak for themselves. I am proud that Florida’s teacher vacancies continue to decline and I am confident that this is a direct result of the forward-thinking policies that Governor Ron DeSantis has championed.”

The Florida Education Association (FEA), the state’s largest association of professional employees with 120,000 union members, has a different take.

Last week, the FEA released its latest data on teacher vacancies and found that at the start of a new school year, nearly every district in the state is advertising unfilled positions in elementary education, ESE and speech language pathology with no significant improvement in the vacancies for education staff professionals (ESPs).

“When Governor DeSantis and Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. pat themselves on the back because they have funded corporate-run schools and micro schools in strip malls, they are doing so at the expense of students in Florida’s public schools by literally siphoning billions each year away from public schools. Make no mistake — this is on purpose,” said Andrew Spar, President of the Florida Education Association.

FEA said its data shows that there are currently 5,007 instructional vacancies, a jump from numbers reported in January of this year, but a decrease from the number reported in August 2023.

“Students across the state are feeling the weight of increased class sizes and not enough teachers or support professionals,” FEA said in a news release.

In an apparent shot at FEA’s teacher data, the FDOE said its vacancy data is reported to the department directly from school districts, “contrary to other sources which have attempted to use inaccurate data to report inflated teacher vacancy data.”

FEA said it counts vacancies posted on district websites twice annually, in August and January. (A county-by-county breakdown of the FEA vacancy numbers can be found here)

Diaz said the decrease in teacher vacancy numbers is a direct result of Gov. DeSantis’ commitment to supporting teachers, with more than $4.6 billion invested in teacher pay increases since 2019.

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But FEA is calling for even more funding — $2.5 billion a year for the next seven years.

FEA said the increase will help address “inadequate salaries so Florida’s teachers are in the top 10 in average pay.”