Florida Sen. Marco Rubio took home his re-election contest Tuesday night, defeating Rep. Patrick Murphy and giving Republicans a key win in a race that was up for grabs prior to June.
Rubio dropped out of the presidential race on March 15, but then made waves with a late entrance into the Senate race after saying for the better part of a year that he would not run for his seat if he lost the GOP nomination, having joked on Twitter that he had made the comment “10,000 times.”
However, Rubio changed his tune after prodding from GOP leadership and top Republicans in the race indicated they would step aside if he wanted to run again, such as Rep. Ron DeSantis, Rep. David Jolly, and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, a close friend of Rubio’s.
Ultimately, he announced his bid just before the filing deadline and went on to handily defeat businessman Carlos Beruff, the lone primary challenger, in the late August GOP primary.
Throughout his general election campaign, Rubio was saddled with criticism from Murphy and national Democrats for his support of Donald Trump, who he referred to as a “con man” during the heat of their GOP primary fight. However, he continued to contrast himself with the GOP nominee despite voting for him, criticizing Trump for allegedly breaking the Cuban embargo in business dealings, saying that Tuesday’s election would be “rigged,” and for the infamous video leaked in early October showing Trump making lewd comments about women on a hot microphone.
In the debates between the two, Murphy attempted to tether Rubio to the GOP nominee, saying he had no “backbone” after not renouncing his support. However, Rubio’s campaign turned the tables, bashing Murphy for his false claims that his family’s construction company never did business with Trump despite winning contracts to build two Trump properties north of Miami.
As for Murphy, a two-term congressman, he was the favorite to win the seat prior to Rubio’s entrance. Unlike Rubio, Murphy had a contentious primary fight from progressive Rep. Alan Grayson, earning support from establishment Democrats such as President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, before turning his attention to Rubio.
However, the Jupiter-based congressman was dogged with accusations that he embellished his resume, pointing to his work as a CPA, his claim that he is a small business owner and that he helped in the clean up of the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010.
Rubio also took Murphy to task over his two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, arguing that the congressman has been ineffective during his time in office.
