David Jolly drops out of Florida Senate race, clearing way for Marco Rubio

David Jolly drops out of Florida Senate race, possibly clearing way for Marco Rubio

By Tal Kopan, CNN
Updated 12:44 PM ET, Fri June 17, 2016

Washington (CNN)Florida Rep. David Jolly on Friday announced he will pull out of the Republican primary to replace Sen. Marco Rubio.

Jolly instead will for reelection to his seat in Congress, citing "unfinished business" in an email to supporters Friday afternoon.

He said he had been convinced to run for Senate by insiders who told him redistricting made his reelection to the House too difficult, but decided he wanted to continue doing the job he has.

The move, though, comes as Rubio has in recent days signaled he might accede to pressure to run for reelection to his seat.

Expectations are growing on Capitol Hill that Rubio, who announced last year that he wouldn't seek reelection, may be getting into the race, according to GOP senators who have spoken with the Florida freshman.

Jolly himself foreshadowed the news Friday morning in an interview with CNN's "New Day," also implying that he believed Rubio would get in the race.

"I have been running for 10 months, we've been polling out front," Jolly said. "Marco is saying he is getting in," he added, apparently referencing rumors to that effect and not indicating Rubio had told him as much.

Jolly spokesman Preston Rudie emailed later Friday, "Clarifying Jolly has no actual knowledge of a Rubio decision."

Jolly had been in a battle to win the Republican nomination for the seat with fellow Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis and Lt. Gov. Carlos López-Cantera as well as other candidates. López-Cantera has also made clear that he will exit the race if Rubio, a personal friend, decides to enter.

Rubio has until June 24 to file for the race. He has said he will go home to Florida and consider the option with his family.

Until recent weeks, when Republicans grew concerned that only Rubio could retain the seat for the GOP, Rubio has repeatedly insisted he will be at least temporarily leaving politics at the end of the year.
The primary will be August 30.

RELATED: Rubio reconsidering whether to run for Senate re-election

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/17/politi...o-senate-race/

Marco Rubio, Reversing Plans, Is Leaning Toward Running for Senate Again

By JEREMY W. PETERS JUNE 17, 2016

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016...-master768.jpg

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, center, and Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona criticized Donald J. Trump this month. Mr. Rubio may run for re-election for his Senate seat.CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is leaning heavily toward running for re-election to the seat he swore he was giving up after six often frustrating years and a failed presidential run, associates said on Friday, a reversal that would upend one of the most competitive races in the country.

Mr. Rubio could make his decision public early next week after he spends the weekend with his family in Florida weighing the personal, political and financial considerations of another campaign. One adviser who described the senator as “all in” said Mr. Rubio’s staff members had already begun scouting a site for a possible announcement.

The likelihood of a re-election bid seemed to grow on Friday when one of Mr. Rubio’s potential rivals, Representative David Jolly, suddenly dropped out of the race and said he would seek another term in the House instead. Earlier in the day, Mr. Jolly foreshadowed his move, telling CNN, “Marco is saying he’s getting in.”

Ever restless, strategic and ambitious — and only 45 years old — Mr. Rubio has spent the past few weeks discussing with his friends and colleagues the difficulties he would face maintaining his political profile if he left the Senate. He would like to run for the presidency again, either in 2020 or 2024, and is concerned that his opportunities would be far more limited if he were no longer in office.

Mr. Rubio’s desire to get into the race and his reasons for doing so were described by three people inside his political operation, two of whom have spoken with him directly in recent days. All insisted on anonymity because Mr. Rubio had not yet completely made up his mind.

A spokesman for Mr. Rubio had no comment.

There are some sobering drawbacks, none of which Mr. Rubio is naïve about, these people said. Florida is one of the few states with a true purple political hue, a quintessential swing state in which Democrats and Republicans often win in statewide elections largely depending on the national mood. And like many Republicans who face election on the same ticket as Donald J. Trump, the presumptive presidential nominee, Mr. Rubio is said to be concerned about the possibility that Mr. Trump could drag him down to defeat.

Mr. Trump’s poor standing among minorities could be especially problematic in Florida, a state with 1.8 million registered Hispanic voters, or 15 percent of the state’s total electorate. And it is a group that has become less Cuban and Republican and more Puerto Rican, Mexican and Democratic in recent years.

Still, despite his misgivings about Mr. Trump’s politics and temperament, Mr. Rubio has said he will vote for Mr. Trump and speak at the Republican convention in July if asked.

Mr. Rubio has personal factors to consider, as well. He has told people that he is eager to spend more time with his four children and that he wants to make enough money to be able to provide for them comfortably well into the future.

He had been planning to spend the next few years giving speeches and doing other civic and political work that would allow for that. To help sift through the offers coming in, he retained the hard-bargaining Washington lawyer Robert B. Barnett.

Mr. Rubio’s thinking has taken a quick and dizzying turn from just last month, when he was still insisting that he had no desire to run again.

On May 16, he wrote a sarcastic message on Twitter: “I have only said like 10,000 times I will be a private citizen in January.”

He has often complained — privately to his colleagues, and publicly when he was a presidential candidate — that the stagnant and highly polarized Senate frustrated him. He lamented the inability to get much done in Congress, saying at one point, “We’re not going to fix America with senators and congressmen,” words that are sure to come back to haunt him in Democratic attack ads if he chooses to run.

Mr. Rubio’s critics have said that his distaste for the job could be seen in his absenteeism. Mr. Rubio racked up the worst attendance record in the Senate while he was running for president, another potentially damaging issue for Democrats to use against him.

Without Mr. Rubio on the ballot, though, Republicans stand a greater chance of losing the seat to Democrats and jeopardizing their majority in the Senate.

He and his aides have carefully set the stage for a possible re-election candidacy. First, he floated the idea on Monday on the radio show of Hugh Hewitt, a respected conservative radio host, saying he had been “deeply impacted” by the massacre at a gay club in Orlando on Sunday.

Then, one of Mr. Rubio’s friends and potential rivals in the race, Lt. Gov. Carlos López-Cantera,said in an interview that he would bow out if Mr. Rubio wanted to run.

But by the time Mr. Rubio stepped in front of a group of reporters at the Capitol on Wednesday to announce that he was reconsidering, the challenges he faces were immediately apparent. Before he could utter a word about himself, he was asked about Mr. Trump.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/us...nate-race.html

Rubio needs to leave the Senate. He's not going to do well in Florida. Trump is going to win Florida hands down and there is Rubio who called Trump a con artist, a fraud, made fun of his hands and sex organs as small, when the hands sure aren't, Phil Bump of WaPo actually spend days doing a scientific measurement analysis and confirmed Trump's hand size is perfectly normal for his height and he's tall.

Rubio needs to fade away, start a new and different life doing something other than politics.

Marco Rubio: 'I changed my mind,' will run for re-election

6/26/16

Another GOP challenger clears way for Marco Rubio