Kevin Steele seeks insight from conservative leaders at Rick Scott-led summit

State Rep. Kevin Steele’s campaign for Chief Financial Officer already enjoys political support from U.S. Sen. Rick Scott. The Dade City Republican attended a summit headlined by the Senator to also gain some policy insight and mentoring.

Steele was among the attendees for the Rescuing the American Dream summit held on Thursday in Washington, D.C. He said it was a quest for knowledge that drew him to Capitol Hill to hear the discussion.

“The way you do things better in the future is by learning from people who have already accomplished something,” Steele told Florida Politics at the event.

Scott gave a shoutout to Steele from the stage. The Governor already endorsed Steele, who is challenging the appointed Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia in 2026. At the summit, Scott both promoted conservative successes in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term and laid out visions on issues from health care reform to cryptocurrency.

Steele called the panel discussions “amazing” and instructive on tackling affordability issues in Florida.

“If we don’t start addressing those things head first, we’re going to fall behind,” Steele said. “I think we’ve lost several million jobs in the state of Florida over the past six or seven years. Learning from Rick Scott and how to bring jobs back to the state is a good thing. And I think that we need to start tackling some of the big, big things that we need to attack.”

That includes addressing property insurance premiums head on and evaluating the property tax situation.

While he will be challenging a Republican incumbent in a Primary, Steele voiced caution at comparing his philosophy too directly with Ingoglia, a former Republican Party of Florida Chair with a history of animus with Scott.

But he did suggest Ingoglia’s recent scrutinizing of local governments may be starting at the wrong place when it comes to cutting spending.

“We need to start focusing on state down, instead of going to a county and pointing out flaws there,” Steele said. “There’s a lot of issues at the state level that we can address, some of which we are, some of which I’ve submitted different bills to address. I think that there’s a lot of waste and abuse at the state level that we can focus on.”