Some Republican operatives have predicted that McCain could join Arizona Sen.
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More than five months after losing all but one of Florida’s 67 counties in the presidential primary, Rubio won them all Tuesday night in the Senate primary. – Patrick Murphy was the runaway victor in Tuesday’s Democratic U.S. Senate race, defeating fellow congressman Alan Grayson. Former state Sen. Al Lawson won the Democratic nomination in her stead.
At her primary watch party in Sunrise, Ann Wasserman., the candidate’s mother, said the watch party’s atmosphere was slightly more tense than past parties because of fallout from emails that showed DNC staffers appearing to favor Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders while Wasserman Schultz was party chair.
Rubio spoke about an hour later and said Murphy has lied about his education and his career and is only successful because of his wealthy father.
On the Democratic side of the aisle, Murphy’s primary race wasn’t much of a contest either.
Murphy is expected to spend the next 10 weeks trying to tie Rubio closely to Trump.
“Florida is ready for a senator who works for them”, Murphy said. “I commit to you right now that I will serve my full term and fight for Florida every day”, he said.
But Rubio might still harbor presidential ambitions.
With 87.5 percent of precincts reporting, Rubio was leading developer Carlos Beruff by roughly 53 percentage points – carrying nearly 71.9 percent of the vote to Beruff’s 18.7 percent.
A similar night of consolidation for the Democratic mainstream means Rubio will face the Florida congressman Patrick Murphy, who comfortably beat off his party’s leftwing challenger Alan Grayson on Tuesday night.
Heath asked Rubio about the main criticism he’s facing: that he’s only running for Senate so he can run for president again in four years. Grayson, a fiery liberal who often makes headlines with brash statements, was seen as too inflammatory to win over a state that tends to support moderate candidates. McCain has faced a tough political year, saying he would not back his party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump. If Clinton wins by a large margin, it could hurt Rubio in the state Obama carried in 2008 and 2012.
Rubio says he supports Trump, whom he disparaged as a “con man” on the presidential campaign trail. Initially he said he won’t campaign with him, but has since said it depends on his schedule.
Murphy has repeatedly blasted Rubio for breaking his oft-repeated pledge not to seek re-election and for missing dozens of votes while campaigning for president.
Largely ignored by her party’s power brokers – to the surprise and anger of many in the state – is Pam Keith, an African-American former judge advocate in the U.S. Navy who is endorsed in the primary by The Miami Herald. That spurred one of the state’s most heavily contested congressional election years. Florida will eventually send at least eight new House members to Washington.
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Republican leaders encouraged Rubio to change his mind, seeing him as the best hope to keep his seat in GOP hands as Democrats sought to regain a majority in the Senate.
