[2][3] Her maternal grandfather was Ben Hill Griffin Jr., a successful businessman in the citrus and cattle industries and a powerful figure in the state legislature.

[citation needed] Before entering politics, Harris worked as a marketing executive at IBM and a vice president of a commercial real estate firm.

[citation needed] Harris played a prominent role in introducing William Griffin, the CEO of Riscorp, to various Florida legislators.

In the 1994 state senate election, Sarasota-based Riscorp, Inc. made illegal contributions totaling $400,000 to dozens of political candidates and committees,[8] including $20,600 to the Harris campaign.

William Griffin eventually pleaded guilty to illegal campaign donations, among allegations of other serious wrongdoing at Riscorp, and served prison time in 1998.

According to a Sun-Herald column from June 2005, "Harris denied any knowledge of the scheme, was never charged with any crime and was cleared of wrongdoing by a state investigator.

She defeated then-incumbent Sandra Mortham in the Republican primary and won the general election against Democratic candidate, Karen Gievers, an attorney from Miami.

However, Tom Feeney, the Speaker of the Florida House of representatives at the time, said that he disagreed with the Senate and believed that Harris was an able advocate to foreign countries.

After the House refused to agree with the proposed budget action, the Senate agreed to restore the money; however, it insisted on a review committee, appointed by Senate President John McKay, Feeney, and Governor Jeb Bush, to evaluate all of Harris' expenditures on international affairs since July 1, 1999, and produce a report.

She was involved in purging 173,000 individuals from the state's voter rolls,[15] the results of hiring a firm, "Choice Point", that provided Florida with an extremely inaccurate list of those supposed felons who became disenfranchised via misidentification.

It was later revealed that, unimpressed with her performance in the media spotlight of the recount, the Bush Campaign had assigned a staff member to her, essentially as a handler.

In the 2002 U.S. House elections, Harris ran for Florida’s 13th congressional district seat, facing Sarasota attorney Jan Schneider.

[22] In 2005 and 2006, a major corporate campaign donor to Harris, Mitchell Wade (founder of defense contractor MZM), was implicated in several bribery scandals.

[26] CQPolitics noted "Harris's former political strategist, Ed Rollins, spoke on the record about the dinner and detailed a meal that cost $2,800, far in excess of the $50 limit on gifts that members of Congress are allowed to accept" at the Washington restaurant Citronelle.

Rollins said that he had conducted a thorough internal investigation into Harris's ties to MZM in hopes of finding conclusive proof of her innocence; but when he could not, he and other advisers, including her lawyer, urged her to drop her candidacy rather than risk federal corruption charges.

According to the reporter, when questioned as to why she would reimburse the restaurant for a meal that had been paid for by MZM, Harris abruptly terminated the interview, and her spokesman later called and requested unsuccessfully that the story not be printed.

[33] On June 7, 2005, with support from her new campaign advisors of Ed Rollins and Jim Dornan, Harris announced her candidacy for the United States Senate election, challenging Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

On the March 15, 2006, episode of Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Harris announced her commitment to invest $10 million of her own inheritance into her Senate campaign.

She described this amount as her entire inheritance and dedicated her campaign to the memory of her late father, George W. Harris Jr., who had been the chairman and president of Citrus & Chemical Bank, a prominent institution in Florida.

Later, an ex-aide told the Associated Press that Harris had received a grand jury subpoena from federal investigators, but kept it from her top advisers, prompting several staff members to quit when they found out.

"[52] In late August, Harris lost another key staffer, Rhyan Metzler, in the wake of a disastrous political rally at Orlando Executive Airport.

"[54] The Pensacola News Journal suggested that Harris might withdraw from the Senate race after winning a primary victory, thereby allowing the Republicans to nominate another candidate, such as Tom Gallagher, to run against Bill Nelson.

In the first few days after the primary, a number of Republican nominees such as Charlie Crist and Tom Lee went on a statewide unity tour with Governor Bush.

The race had been ranked as "leaning Democratic" by CQ Politics, but Buchanan scored a very narrow victory, winning the election by a few hundred votes.

Harris was a headline speaker at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church's "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference held in Ft. Lauderdale on March 17–18, 2006.

"[59] The stated mission of ReclaimAmerica.org is "To inform, equip, motivate, and support Christians; enabling them to defend and implement the Biblical principles on which our country was founded.

She said, We have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers.

Real estate developer Peter Monroe, another GOP primary opponent, called on her to quit the race and resign from Congress.

"[64] The press release went on to mention her past support of Israel and quoted her Jewish campaign manager Bryan G. Rudnick, who stated "As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, I know that she encourages people of all faiths to engage in government so that our country can continue to thrive on the principles set forth by our founding fathers, without malice towards anyone.

[68] In an earlier debate with Nelson, Harris was asked to comment on trade of arms with foreign nations and the potential threat of their acquisition by terrorist groups.