Chip Englander, who served as Rand Paul’s presidential campaign manager until the Kentucky senator called it quits this month, will not stick around for Paul’s Senate reelection campaign. Instead, Englander has been hired as a senior adviser to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another 2016 Republican hopeful.
“I’m excited to work for Sen. Rubio,” Englander told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday. “He has a bold, conservative reform agenda built for the 21st century.”
Englander will oversee the Florida senator’s campaign operation in the Midwest. He claims he’s entirely familiar with the territory after helping to elect Illinois’ Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2012, and working on the 2010 Senate campaign of former Wisconsin Congressman Mark Neumann.
Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz have both been battling to attract supporters who previously backed Paul, their libertarian-leaning colleague. The two first-term senators both finished strong in Iowa — Cruz in first, Rubio in third — but Cruz added to his momentum Tuesday night with an unexpected third-place finish in New Hampshire. Rubio finished fifth, and carried just over 10 percent of the vote.
Englander’s former boss, Paul, has previously pledged to support whichever candidate secures the GOP nomination, though he has said he will not endorse one of his former opponents in the primary.
The Kentucky senator suspended his campaign 48 hours after he finished fifth in the Iowa caucuses, and promised his supporters he will “continue to carry the torch of liberty in the U.S. Senate.”
