It’s a race Democrats are targeting in an effort to regain a majority in the Senate, and their hope is that Rubio’s presidential ambitions have dulled the shine he had with Florida voters.
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Sanders endorsed anti-establishment candidate Tim Canova in the 23rd House District around Miami, but he lost to Wasserman Schulz by almost 14 percentage points.
“Prefer people who work with both parties and take ideas from both parties”, says Marianne Gruskin who attended Murphy’s watch party tonight.
Setting a tough tone for the November general election, Murphy zeroed in on Rubio’s voting record during remarks to supporters.
Trump, who faces Clinton in the November 8 presidential election, has endorsed both McCain and Rubio in their re-election bids even though he has rocky relations with both.
Rubio improves Republican chances, but the race is still one of the nation’s truly competitive contests, said Jennifer Duffy, a senior analyst with the Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C. She said Rubio has consistently led in polls, but only in the single digits. Murphy was leading fellow Representative Alan Grayson 60.9 percent to 16 percent in early returns.
Even with Florida being shifted toward slightly favoring Rubio, Sabato said the national landscape “looks like an ideal situation for a Democratic Senate takeover”.
Meanwhile, six-term Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was pitted against a trio of challengers in his primary.
At 33 years old, a win would make Murphy one of the youngest senators in Washington.
Murphy, of course, will face incumbent Marco Rubio, who had dropped his reelection bid to seek the GOP presidential nomination, only to have those aspirations go down in flames as Donald Trump’s candidacy continued to ascend. Murphy also managed to beat Pam Keith, whose late endorsement from the Miami Herald wasn’t enough to drive momentum.
Rubio’s victory comes after a last-minute decision to seek a second term after a failed presidential bid and a decision not to run for re-election.
In the Atlantic-coast 18th district, left open by Murphy, wounded veteran Brian Mast was buoyed to victory by national conservative groups over Rebecca Negron, whose husband is president of the state Senate. Rubio received more than 70 percent of the vote. The incumbent congresswoman held off college professor Tim Canova, 57-43 percent.
Murphy also enjoys support from tons of groups that would love to see Rubio dethroned, including the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which aims to get Democratic Senators elected. Murphy has repeatedly pointed out that Rubio now supports a man he called a conman who can’t be trusted. But in the 19th district seat vacated by Clawson, Francis Rooney, former USA ambassador to the Vatican and a major GOP fundraiser, won the party’s nomination over Chauncey Goss, son of former congressman and Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss; and Dan Bongino, an ex-Secret Service agent who twice failed in Maryland congressional bids. “Over the past year, I have met and listened to so many hardworking families from across our state”.
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U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has turned back a strong primary challenge and will likely be re-elected to a seventh term in Congress.
