Nelson, Scott to face off in debate

Bill Nelson and Rick Scott face off Tuesday in the first of two debates in Florida’s U.S. Senate race.

The event will be broadcast and streamed online at 7 p.m.

The debate will be shown in Spanish on WSCV-Ch. 51 in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market and on Telemundo stations in Orlando, Fort Myers and Tampa. Elsewhere it’s on cable systems.

It will be streamed in English at www.nbcmiami.com.

Moderators for the debate are Marilys Llanos, political reporter at Telemundo, and Jackie Nespral, news anchor at WTVJ-Ch. 6.

The debate is scheduled to take place earlier in the day at Telemundo studios in Miramar.

Democrat Nelson is seeking a fourth term in the Senate. Term limits prohibit Republican Scott from running for a third term as governor, and he’s challenging Nelson.

The race is one of the tightest in the nation. The RealClearPolitics average of seven public opinion polls since the end of August, show Nelson with 46.1

percent and Scott with 45 percent. Given the margins of error in all polls, the difference of 1.1 percentage points is statistically insignificant, meaning the race effectively is tied.

Both candidates have also agreed to an Oct. 16 debate on CNN. They have also debated whether to have a third debate.