A Super PAC backing Ted Cruz is trying to KO Marco Rubio in his home state of Florida, releasing a torrent of ads ahead of the state’s March 15 primary that attack the candidate from any and all angles.
Accusations of Rubio’s support for corporate welfare and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants dot the videos, as well as harsh descriptors for the Florida senator. One of the spots hardly spares a word in the dictionary, calling Rubio a “pay-to-play, unprincipled, anti-free market, corporate welfare, big sugar errand-boy.”
Cruz and Rubio had been deploying a tag-team strategy against Donald Trump at the most recent Republican debates, with the Texan lawyer playing the role of Muhammad Ali and Rubio doing his best Joe Frazier. The one-two punch of tactically picking apart Trump’s record and rhetorically brawling with Trump on stage has helped soften the frontrunner’s support in several primary states.
Although Super PACs are forbidden by law from coordinating expenditures with candidates, it appears that the Cruz-Rubio alliance – a pact that Republicans hoping to see a contested convention in July have cheered – has yielded to Cruz’s efforts to drop his Senate colleague.
“We had so much fun winning Sen. Cruz’s home state by 17 points, we thought why not repeat that in Sen. Rubio’s home state?” Kellyanne Conway, the head of the PAC behind the ads, Keep the Promise I, told Politico. Conway said the videos will be on the air “including if not especially in Florida”.
Rubio was several points clear of Cruz in the Sunshine State in the most recent polls, taken from Feb. 21 to Feb. 25. Rubio pulled 26 percent support, more than twice of Cruz’s 12.3 percent.
However, Trump was lapping them both, ahead with 44.7 percent. That would make him the prohibitive favorite to take Florida’s 99 delegates, which are awarded on a winner-take-all basis.
