Democrats have not won a significant race for statewide office in Florida in nearly a decade but are clinging to the hope that they can knock off Republican Sen. Marco Rubio in 2022.
Not since 2012, when Barack Obama was reelected president and Bill Nelson was reelected to the Senate, have Democrats won a big statewide race in Florida — unless you count Nikki Fried winning the race for agriculture commissioner in 2018. But even with President Joe Biden replacing former President Donald Trump in the White House, Democrats think Rubio is vulnerable, arguing the party’s emerging consensus challenger, Rep. Val Demings, can defy the odds and beat him.
“These races are tight, and Val is exactly the sort of candidate who can win statewide,” said Ben Pollara, a Democratic operative in Florida who is senior adviser to “Retire Rubio,” a super PAC dedicated to defeating the second-term senator in the midterm elections.
Demings, 64, represents the Orlando-area 10th Congressional District.
The third-term congresswoman, who is black, served as chief of the Orlando Police Department prior to winning election to the House in 2016. Last cycle, Biden considered selecting Demings as his running mate before settling on now-Vice President Kamala Harris. On Tuesday, she solidified her position as the preferred candidate of top Democrats to take on Rubio when Rep. Stephanie Murphy announced she would not run for Senate next year.
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Murphy, 42, who immigrated to the United States from Vietnam as a child, also represents an Orlando-area district, the 7th.
“Since February, I’ve been traveling the state of Florida listening to my fellow Democrats about how we can regroup and reenergize our state party ahead of the ’22 elections. We’ve had too many close losses in Florida, and so I wanted to use my experience from winning tough races to help the party prepare itself,” Murphy said in a video message to supporters. “The reality is that Marco Rubio will not be an easy opponent.”
Republicans agree. Rubio, who is mulling another White House bid in 2024, is not on their list of top-tier concerns.
In 2018, Republicans in Florida bucked a nationwide blue wave with narrow wins in races for governor and Senate. In 2020, Trump won Florida by 3.3 percentage points. His coattails helped flip a couple of Democratic-held House districts, too. In a state where competitive contests are usually nail-biters, Trump’s margin over Biden was akin to a rout and suggested that the perennial battleground had started tilting Republican.
Some Republicans think Murphy would have been the tougher out for Rubio. But one GOP strategist with Florida ties said the senator is on track to win reelection no matter which Democrat he runs against. “He’s not vulnerable, and I don’t think which candidate runs matters,” this strategist said. “It will be hyped, money will be raised and spent, and sans something odd happening, it will be a snoozer.”
Democrats are asserting that such unbridled optimism is premature.
“I am not sold on the Senate race being a heartbreaker because of the constant, frustrating narrowness of the state,” a Democratic operative said.
