Maddow Blog | Despite his record, Rick Scott enters race to lead the Senate GOP

Those looking for the most competitive and consequential intraparty fight in Republican politics right now might be tempted to look at one of the many ongoing GOP primaries, but I’d recommend looking to Capitol Hill, instead.

It was nearly three months ago when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he’d step down from his leadership post at the end of the current Congress, and it wasn’t long before Senate Minority Whip John Thune and former Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn launched campaigns to succeed the Kentucky Republican. Their behind-the-scenes wrangling tends not to generate a lot headlines, but both men are investing a lot of time and energy into the contest.

Yesterday, however, the two-person race became a three-person race. NBC News reported:

Scott is currently running for re-election in the Sunshine State. Evidently, the GOP incumbent not only expects to win that race — he won by 0.2% of the vote six years ago — the Florida Republican also believes he can run both campaigns simultaneously.

It also helps explain why Scott was among the first prominent Republicans to show up at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse for Donald Trump’s criminal trial to show support for the defendant: The former president has been quite critical of Thune and Cornyn in recent years, and Scott likely believes that he can secure a Trump endorsement in the race for the GOP leadership post.

There are a variety of hurdles, however, that are likely to stand in the senator’s way, including his Medicare scandal and the fact that Scott has such a thin legislative record.

But what I find most important is the fact that Scott appears eager to parlay failure into a promotion.

In January 2021, Senate Republican leaders implored their members to be responsible and not oppose the certification of the 2020 election results. Eight GOP senators ignored the calls — including Scott.

Soon after, as McConnell declared that his conference would not present a policy blueprint ahead of the midterm elections, Florida’s junior senator did the opposite — unveiling a radical vision that Democrats treated as a pinata ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Scott, in his capacity as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, nevertheless used NRSC resources to promote himself and his unpopular plan, fueling chatter that “NRSC” stood for the “National Rick Scott Committee.”

At the same time, Republicans only needed a net gain of one seat to take the majority. Scott had an opportunity to help recruit like-minded candidates, raise money at the national level, and shape the party’s message, all while positioning himself as a partisan hero. Scott felt so good about his chances that he boasted that his party had a path to a majority with 55 seats.

Instead, Republican suffered a net loss in 2022, as Democrats grew their majority.

Scott soon after launched a challenge to McConnell anyway, and lost badly. “My belief is that my challenge to Sen. McConnell was not the end of something, it was the beginning of something,” he said after his defeat.

Evidently, Scott meant it.

For McConnell's part, the incumbent minority leader has remained neutral when it comes to Cornyn and Thune. That said, he reportedly "loathes" Scott, so keep an eye on whether McConnell takes steps to undermine the Republican's candidacy.

This article was originally published on MSNBC.com