Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) has announced that she is running in the Democratic Senatorial primary to take on Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in next year’s midterm elections. Another potential high-profile Democratic contender in that same race, Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), recently announced that she’s not going to be running for Senate, leaving space for the Demings campaign. In a campaign announcement video, Demings said that she is “running for the United States Senate because of two simple words — never tire.” She insisted, as she put it, that she has “never tired” of working for what’s right.
Besides recounting some of her experience in her personal life and as a police officer in Central Florida across over two decades, Demings also commented as follows in her campaign announcement:
‘I’ve never tired of representing Florida — not for one single moment… And along the way, we brought law and order to a lawless president… Unlike some in Washington, I never tire of standing up for what I believe is right, because no one is above the law. But it turns out, there are some in Washington who prefer the same, old tired ways of doing business.’
Watch Demings’s announcement below:
I'm running for U.S. Senate because I will never tire of standing up for what is right. Never tire of serving Florida. Never tire of doing good.
Join my campaign today: https://t.co/rHVPBuSzKU pic.twitter.com/HuWB80Mrxh
— Val Demings (@valdemings) June 9, 2021
Rubio was last re-elected in 2016 — a year, considering Trump’s election, of obviously surging Republican support — and he was first elected in 2010, when Democrat Kendrick Meek and then-independent Charlie Crist earned a combined total of more votes than Rubio. The problem was that the liberal side of the population was split between Meek and Crist (the latter of whom has become a Democrat and is campaigning to take on Florida Republican Ron DeSantis next year). Nevertheless, there’s clearly high statewide interest in having a Senator other than Rubio. Since he’s going up for re-election in a midterm election year, he can’t count on a potentially popular Republican presidential pick helping drive turnout among conservatives.
Rubio once opposed Trump, but he — like so many other prominent Republicans — has since become a supporter of the ex-president. Twice, Rubio has voted to acquit Trump of serious impeachment charges including abuse of power and incitement of insurrection. Rubio also helped block a bill that would have created an independent commission to investigate the January Capitol riot. He is part of the bulk of Republicans currently in Congress who seem to occupy themselves more with partisanship than solving problems.
