It seems that even Marco Rubio’s humiliating presidential campaign, which culminated in his 46-27 loss to Donald Trump in the Florida GOP primary, couldn’t destroy the myth of Marco Rubio. On Thursday, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn publicly called on Rubio to seek re-election to the Senate this year, and NRSC chair Roger Wicker told CNN it was “a very real development.” Rubio himself still doesn’t sound incredibly interested, and he touted the campaign of his friend, Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera. However, Rubio didn’t quite close the door on another 2016 campaign, only calling the idea “unlikely.” Florida’s filing deadline is June 24.
Several candidates are seeking the GOP nod in the late August primary, and the leadership’s continued obsession with Rubio really doesn’t speak well of any of them. Indeed, CNN reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told a closed-door lunch full of Republican senators that he didn’t feel good with how the race was progressing, and he implored his colleagues to encourage Rubio to seek another term.
It’s not hard to see why the GOP leadership would prefer to have Rubio, warts and all, as their standard bearer instead of one of the blokes who are actually running. Lopez-Cantera may look ok on paper, but he hasn’t raised much money; at the end of March, Lopez-Cantera had just $389,000 in the bank, a horrible sum for a campaign in a state as expensive as Florida. Rep. David Jolly has actually sworn off personally asking for money, and he has a horrible relationship with his party. Rep. Ron DeSantis is a favorite of far-right types like the Club for Growth, but the GOP establishment is reportedly skeptical he can win in November.
But DeSantis looks like a bona fide moderate compared to rich guy Carlos Beruff, who called President Obama “this animal we call president,” then sloppily tried to lie his way out of his statement. Finally, there’s businessman Todd Wilcox, who just called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme,” which is one of the absolute worst things to say in Florida. So yeah, while the Senate GOP’s call for Rubio to come back and save them may be embarrassing for all involved, he may be their only hope in November.
Of course, as Rubio proved over the last few months, the idea of a Marco Rubio candidacy is better than the actual thing. And with Rubio’s standing in Florida GOP politics so bad (again, he lost to Trump 46-27), it’s unlikely many of the current field of candidates, save Lopez-Cantera, would get out of the way for him. Rubio has also burned bridges across the state with influential Republicans and party activists, both by running against his one-time mentor Jeb Bush, and his general habit of discarding people after he no longer thinks that he needs them. Maybe Rubio could survive a crowded primary, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
In any case, it looks unlikely that Rubio actually is interested in trying his luck. Unless another Republican savior parachutes in before June 24, Republicans are going to have to accept that they’re going to have to live with the field they have. And that suits national Democrats, who have consolidated behind Rep. Patrick Murphy, just fine.