CLEVELAND — Marco Rubio’s summer swoon didn’t put a damper on his first campaign appearance in Ohio, with an estimated 400 packing a local restaurant to get their first glimpse of the Republican presidential hopeful.
Flying high in national polls after declaring for the White House in the spring, the Florida senator has seen his numbers drop, going from a consistent member of the top three GOP contenders to as low as seventh. Late Wednesday, 24 hours before the first televised presidential debate of the 2016 campaign, Rubio stands in seventh place, at 5.2 percent, in the RealClearPolitics average of national surveys.
“I’m excited about the chance to talk to the American people about who I am and what I want to do as president,” Rubio said in brief remarks to reporters. “It’s the first chance — we’ll have others — but it’s the first chance; it’s important.”
Rubio supporters who turned out to see him Wednesday evening at TownHall restaurant in Cleveland said they’re pleased with the candidate’s progress and optimistic about his prospects. And those voters still shopping appear taken with Rubio, hanging around to meet the candidate and snap selfies. Despite lagging horse race numbers, Rubio’s campaign is quick to point out, correctly, that he possesses some of the highest personal favorable ratings of any GOP contender, meaning that he has plenty of room to grow. His committed backers expect things to snap back to his advantage.
Jeffrey Zipper, a 55-year-old physician and Rubio supporter from Boca Raton, Fla., who is in Cleveland to support the senator as he prepares to participate in the first presidential debate, chalked up the lower poll numbers to “a lot more people having come into [the campaign] and sort of dispersing the support.”
He added: “I think over time, that that will rectify itself. I think there’s going to be a big shakeup and shake out in the Republican primary in who’s running and I think Marco’s got a great message. He is the American dream.” Zipper has donated to Rubio’s political action committee and contributed to other Republicans; in May he wrote a $50,000 check to Conservative Solutions PAC, the super PAC supporting Rubio’s presidential bid.
State Treasurer Josh Mandel, a Republican who has endorsed Rubio despite the candidacy of Ohio Gov. John Kasich, helped organize the senator’s town hall event, held on a trendy avenue adjacent to downtown Cleveland. Rubio delivered his standard stump speech, discussing his humble roots as the son of poor Cuban immigrants and plans to bring conservative reform and a more aggressive foreign policy to the White House.
But it was new for many in this crowd, and even Rubio backers who have heard it all before said it still resonates.
“It seems like he says what he means, and he means what he says, it seems like he really believes in the things that he talks about and it mattered to me a lot about, just the fact that he can connect with regular, everyday people,” said Darvio Morrow, a Rubio supporter who runs an entertainment company in Cleveland. “And, also for me, being a 28 year-old African American, is, I think it would be cool to see someone whose young, energetic and have a Hispanic president, I think that would be cool.”
Disclosure: The author’s wife works as an adviser to Scott Walker.
