Why did Marco Rubio, who vowed to not run for reelection to the Senate, change his mind? “Had to,” he told me Wednesday morning, shortly after the news broke the Florida Republican would, in fact, run again for a second term.
“We have to hold the Senate,” Rubio said. If Hillary Clinton is elected president, he reasoned, “the Senate is where we stop her.”
“And if it’s Donald,” he added, pausing momentarily, “we’ve got to hold him accountable too.”
Rubio had just finished an interview at Fox News’s Capitol Hill bureau with Chris Wallace, set to air Wednesday evening on the news network. C-SPAN’s Steve Scully grabbed Rubio for an interview as he left the building the network shares with Fox. When I asked, as he was whisked between interviews, when he starts campaigning, Rubio shrugged his shoulders, mentioned something about a vote in the Senate, and said, “This all just started…” his voice trailing off.
Rubio’s whirlwind announcement comes on a crowded day for political news, with House speaker Paul Ryan unveiling a comprehensive proposal to replace Obamacare and Donald Trump delivering a hyped speech about Hillary Clinton. The news was leaked, says a Rubio source, before the Florida senator was able to give a press conference about his decision. But the announcement itself was imminent—Florida’s deadline for getting on the ballot for the primary is Friday, with the Republican primary set for August 30.
The once-crowded GOP primary for Rubio’s seat has already begun to thin, with House member David Jolly dropping out of the race last week under the assumption Rubio would run. Rubio’s close friend, Lieutenant Governor Carlos Lopez-Cantera, told me this spring that if his fellow Cuban-American decided to run, he would drop out of the race. Lopez-Cantera’s campaign confirmed he was backing out Wednesday morning.
“My friend asked me to run,” Rubio said, when asked about Lopez-Cantera. Among the remaining candidates are House member Ron DeSantis and another Cuban-American, real-estate developer Carlos Beruff. Beruff’s campaign was out with a statement Wednesday morning quickly, casting Rubio as “Washington’s candidate.”
Rubio dismissed Beruff as a supporter of Charlie Crist. Crist, of course, was the Republican governor whom Rubio challenged in the 2010 Senate primary, forcing Crist out of the party to run as an independent. After Rubio won that race, Crist declared himself a Democrat, running unsuccessfully for governor in 2014.
Among the Democrats vying for Rubio’s seat are two House members: establishment-approved Patrick Murphy and progressive favorite Alan Grayson. Rubio did not dismiss the difficulty of retaining his seat in the general election in such a volatile political year. “Look, it’s Florida,” he said. “It’s a tough state.”
And it could be tough for Rubio even in the GOP primary. The first-term senator lost his home state’s primary to Trump, the final nail in his presidential campaign’s coffin. And after Rubio’s many protestations, even after his White House bid ended, that he would not seek reelection, his reversal could strike voters as overly ambitious and wishy-washy—a similar charge Rubio himself made in his primary bid against Crist in 2010.
Finally, there’s the issue of Trump himself. Rubio spared no criticism of the New York businessman in the final weeks of his presidential campaign, including a biting charge that Trump could not be trusted with the nuclear codes. Rubio has since said he would support Trump for president over Clinton, even if he “stands by” his criticism of Trump.
Still, a new poll from Quinnipiac found that in a match-up with both potential Democratic candidates, Rubio beats Murphy by seven points and Grayson by eight. The poll found he was also the only Republican candidate to beat the likely Democrat, Murphy.
I asked if Rubio had consulted any polls before deciding to run again. “No, I didn’t look at any polls,” he said.
Update: Ron DeSantis has also announced via a campaign statement that he will drop out of the Senate race and instead seek reelection for his House seat.
