Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera wants to follow in Marco Rubio’s footsteps. The Republican is running for the Senate seat Rubio is leaving to run for president in 2016.
There’s no guarantee the lieutenant governor will succeed, even in the Republican primary where he faces opponents like Reps. David Jolly and Ron DeSantis. But Lopez-Cantera, the state’s lieutenant governor since 2013, is trying to frame himself in the race as the Washington outsider in the contest against the two congressmen.
Appointed by Gov. Rick Scott ahead of his 2014 re-election bid, Lopez-Cantera is trying to make the case that he should succeed his fellow South Floridian.
“I’m running because Florida’s next senator should be a [conservative] Florida Republican, not a Washington, D.C. Republican. I’m as frustrated as anybody with the inaction from Congress, and as frustrated about the things that they have taken action on,” Lopez-Cantera said during a phone interview. “I just don’t see a lot of that perspective in D.C., and I want to be that voice for Floridians.”
A 15-year political veteran himself, Lopez-Cantera has found himself as a chief ally to Rubio and Scott, having helped advance tax cuts enacted back when Charlie Crist was governor as Republican leader in the Florida legislature. Rubio has all but anointed his friend — whom he met when they both worked on Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign — as his successor in the Senate.
Lopez-Cantera also hopes that South Florida can be the trump card that puts him over the top against his fellow GOP candidates. Having won there both statewide in 2014 and the county level in 2012, he believes he could replicate his past regional success in 2016.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m the only candidate in this race that has a statewide election experience and success. I’m the only candidate who’s won a standalone election in the largest county in the state,” Lopez-Cantera said, pointing to his 2012 win in Miami-Dade County for property appraiser over an incumbent. “I look forward to helping the top of the ticket in the general election, and candidates all the way down the ticket.”
While he’s in the middle of the pack in the polls, Lopez-Cantera supporters believe he can win. GOP strategist Rick Wilson, a friend of the Senate candidate, believes he is the complete package both as a candidate and a potential senator.
“He’s got a [conservative] record, he’s got a presentation file. He’s a unicorn in Florida politics,” said Wilson, referring to him being Jewish, Cuban-American and from South Florida. “He is a good candidate, he’s a hard fighter, he’s a tough guy, but he is also somebody who you sit in a restaurant with — Carlos is the guy who, by the end of the night, has talked to every waiter there and gotten to know everyone in the room … He really engages with people.”
Wilson, a Tallahassee-based strategist, also believes Lopez-Cantera’s statewide appeal could separate him from his GOP rivals. He describes Jolly, a casualty of redistricting in the House, as a “deliberate Jon Huntsman-style” moderate Republican.
“You look at the assets and liabilities in the field, and look, the fact of the matter is that David Jolly is to the left of everyone in the field by a very long shot,” Wilson said, adding that Jolly was the only House Republican to vote not to investigate Planned Parenthood.
“DeSantis is playing the conservative game, but come on,” Wilson continued. “He’s just kind of a jerk to people. Every other word out of the guy’s mouth is ‘Harvard and Yale, Harvard and Yale — oh, did I mention I went to Harvard and Yale?'”
Lopez-Cantera has “got a statewide appeal, which the other guys are very explicitly running in their lanes,” Wilson said, pointing to DeSantis’ appeal in Jacksonville and Jolly’s in Tampa. “Carlos is one of the few guys that can go statewide and mean it.”
Lopez-Cantera supporters embrace the Rubio comparisons.
“I think they are very similar in outlook. I think they’re very similar in their political philosophy, particularly on national security,” said Nelson Diaz, the GOP chair for Miami-Dade County, who was also a veteran of the Dole 1996 campaign. “From Marco to Carlos would be a pretty stable transition. You wouldn’t have significant policy differences.”
However, Lopez-Cantera insists that he is running his own campaign.
“Marco’s a friend but he’s running his own race. I’m running my race,” Lopez-Cantera said. “My candidacy will stand on its own.”
