‘Things change’: Rubio, once Trump’s adversary, embraces former president
When Marco Rubio last sought re-election, in 2016, he seemed more likely to insult Donald Trump than campaign with him.
The situation is very different six years later.
On Sunday, Trump will headline a rally for the Republican senator just 48 hours before Election Day, appearing with him in Miami in what will be his campaign’s largest and most high-profile public event this year.
For Rubio, the appearance with Trump is the culmination of a deeply changed relationship with the former president, a shift that has seen him go from calling his former presidential rival a dangerous menace to embracing him as a political ally.
It’s an evolution critics say proves Rubio’s cravenness — but allies hail as a necessary adjustment that has benefited both men.
“It was really smart politically for him to be at that rally,” said Rob Schmidt, vice president of the national GOP polling firm McLaughlin & Associates. “In the simplest of terms, midterm elections are about turning out your base . ... I think both parties, both recognize the utility in being partners rather than adversaries.”
Rubio declined an interview for this story.
In a statement, a spokesman for Rubio’s Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Val Demings, sought to use Trump’s past criticism of Rubio against him this year, citing his attendance record in the Senate.
“We agree with Donald Trump: Marco Rubio has failed to show up for Florida,” said Demings spokesman Christian Slater. “He doesn’t show up for work and has one of the worst attendance records in the Senate. And when he does show up, he hurts Florida by fighting to gut Social Security and Medicare, raise the price of prescription drugs, and ban abortion with no exceptions for victims of rape and incest.”
MUTUAL ATTACKS
Both leaders’ history of personal ridicule will take a back seat Sunday, even as Democrats seek to remind voters of Trump’s criticisms of Rubio from the 2016 GOP primary, like his belittling nickname for Rubio,
“Little Marco.” Using the moniker as a title, Demings released her own ad ahead of Sunday, quoting Trump’s own past words to attack Rubio.
“He can’t be elected dog-catcher in Florida,” Trump once said during an Alabama rally in late February 2016. “I call him, ‘Little Marco.’”
Rubio repeatedly shot back at the time, attacking Trump over the size of his hands, the tone of his tan, excessive sweat, his business record and calling him an “erratic individual” and “wholly unprepared to be President of the United States.”
“A con artist is about to take over the Republican Party and the conservative movement and we have to put a stop to it,” Rubio told CBS This Morning, the morning after a brutal Republican primary debate in Houston. “The media is pumping him up as some sort of unstoppable force.”
Months later, Trump went on to consolidate his position in the party, including a decisive win in Rubio’s home state. And six years on, it appears Rubio largely concedes Trump has become a fixture of his party, recently calling him “the most wellknown and popular Republican in the country.”
Rubio allies say his evolution toward Trump is the result of the senator’s pragmatic approach to politics, in which he did what was necessary to build a working relationship with his party’s leader.
“This is politics, so whatever I say today is not the same tomorrow,” said Ernesto Ackerman, a Rubio supporter and president of the group Independent Venezuelan American Citizens. “Things change.”
Rubio’s pro-Trump conversion, of course, happened long before this weekend, or this year. The senator endorsed his former GOP rival in the 2016 presidential race, and when Trump took office, he became an unflagging ally on policies big and small alike.
Rubio, for example, worked with Trump to reverse Cuba-related policies enacted by former President Barack Obama and expanded the child tax credit. He also abandoned efforts, undertaken during his first term in office, to pass a broad overhaul of the country’s immigration system — legislation Trump vehemently opposed.
“Donald Trump’s really reformed the Republican Party and reset the issue agenda, and I think he’s recognized that,” Schmidt said of Rubio. “I think really what [Rubio has] done very well is recognize that a Republican base voter or Republican Party voter, they don’t want to shy away from a fight.”
Rubio also twice voted against convicting Trump after he was impeached by the U.S. House and vigorously supported his reelection campaign in 2020, appearing at an election-eve rally in Miami-Dade County with Trump that year. His support for Trump didn’t wane after he left office, either: More recently, Rubio has been among the most vigorous critics of the FBI’s search-and-seizure operation this summer at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
STATE OF RACE
Rubio has been less willing to go along with Trump’s false accusation that the 2020 election was stolen from him: The senator voted to certify the last presidential election and has condemned the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But in remarks last week, Rubio said it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he tried to work with the former president.
“What’s interesting about that question is if Donald Trump were a Democrat people would be saying, ‘The election’s over, you guys need to work together now for the good of the country.’ But somehow because he’s a Republican I’m supposed to fight with him forever?” Rubio told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune during a recent stop in Sarasota.
While Demings, who is at the top of Democrats’ ticket, has raised more campaign money than Rubio throughout the election cycle and some polls suggest she’s been within striking distance of the Republican incumbent, surveys still show Rubio in position to comfortably win reelection.
And in a year that has been dominated by voters’ concerns about inflation and an unpopular Democratic president, Demings — who campaigned with President Joe Biden for the first time last week — has had little backing from national Democratic figures on the campaign trail.
The Cook Political Report, a non-partisan political handicapping service, rates the Florida Senate race as “likely Republican,” with races in states such as Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina ranked as better opportunities for Democrats this week.