While Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Patrick Murphy both easily won their respective primaries for the U.S. Senate Tuesday, incumbent Sen.
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While the similarity is that both Rubio and Murphy skipped debates with their primary rivals and both went on to huge wins, the former Republican presidential candidate beat Carlos Beruff by nearly 54 points on Tuesday and Murphy overpowered fellow Congressman Alan Grayson by 41 points.
It’s somewhat surprising to see Rubio running at all since he said he would put his political career on hiatus after losing the Republican presidential primary to Donald Trump. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who recently quit as Democratic National Committee chair, won her toughest race since she was elected in 2004.
After getting only 31 percent of the vote, next to Clinton’s 68 percent in Florida’s presidential primary earlier this year, Sanders was also unable to lead Canova to victory, who ended up claiming that the race would be determined by local issues, rather than Sanders’ support. He may face more vocal criticism from them now their primary battles are over. “Marco Rubio”, Murphy said.
Within minutes of Rubio’s salting away the win Tuesday night, Scott took to Twitter and Facebook to congratulate Beruff – but not Rubio. He will face Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy who dispatched the embattled Alan Grayson.
Murphy, right, visited the Tampa Bay area several times over the past few weeks in an effort to woo the area’s voters. Senator Rubio has the worst vote attendance record of any Florida Senator in almost 50 years.
“But I just couldn’t be at peace with the idea that we were going to not just potentially lose a Senate seat but lose the balance of power at this critical moment in our nation’s history”, said Rubio. But during an appearance in West Palm Beach, he conditioned his participation in additional debates on Rubio committing to serving a full six-year term if he wins in November. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was looking forward to being a “private citizen in January”, and Senate Republicans were fretting over their lackluster field to replace him.
McCain, who turned 80 on Monday and called this the “race of his life”, was up by 17 points at midnight, two hours after polls closed, with 35 percent of precincts reporting. Grayson was mired in controversy for much of his campaign, but his progressive platform and refusal to back down from a challenge left many hoping that he might oust his run-of-the-mill opponent and take on failed presidential candidate Marco Rubio.
Florida had to rip up and redraw its congressional maps after they were found to violate the state constitution’s provision requiring compact districts that don’t favor incumbents or political parties.
In August, Rubio said he would be open to campaigning alongside Trump, while also refusing to answer the Orlando Sentinel editorial board’s question about whether Trump was qualified to be president.
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Likewise, Rubio was fixated on Murphy in the closing days, calling him “one of the most unaccomplished members of Congress”. That’s a doable feat considering Democrats are contesting in 10 GOP-held seats, while Republicans are challenging in one (Nevada).
