Marco Rubio, Florida’s senior senator, has already drawn two challengers for 2022. On Wednesday, his most critical contender, U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Orlando, introduced she is in the race.
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South Floridians, particularly these in Miami-Dade, have simply gained a front-row seat to what is predicted to be some of the heated Senate races in the nation in the 2022 midterms — the state’s senior Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Miami vs. Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Orlando, who just announced her candidacy. or Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell. And that’s simply up to now.
Not simply occasion politics and philosophically will come into play, but additionally gender, race, ethnicity, geography and even age will possible be factors of assault for each side.
In different phrases, this race may have every little thing — and Miami-Dade voters will likely be smack in the center of all of it.
Russell, like Demings, a Democrat, introduced that he, too, needs to problem Rubio. Russell is just not the Democratic Party’s anointed candidate, Demings is, however in a race pitting a Hispanic man and a Black girl, Russell can nonetheless make a stand as the one Anglo in the race at this level.
For now, the race is admittedly about Rubio and Demings, and we suspect it’s going to be tough and tumble.
Presidential run
As the realm’s highest-ranking Republican, Rubio, 50, is the hometown man who started his political profession on the West Miami fee. His major native workplace is in Doral.
The Cuban American ran for president in 2016, however went from promising candidate to ridicule when fellow candidate Donald Trump tagged with the “Little Marco” moniker. He dropped out after coming in second to Trump in the Florida main. And in what appears to be a protracted, very long time in the past — 2013 — Time journal labeled him the savior of the Republican Party. Conservatives love him, liberals not a lot. He has been endorsed by former President Trump.
In the opposite nook, Demings, 64, is a former Orlando police chief who has served her Central Florida district since 2017. She’s politically scorching. She was one in every of seven impeachment managers who argued the case towards Trump throughout his 2020 trial in the Senate. Then she was on President Biden’s quick checklist of potential VPs earlier than he settled on Kamala Harris. Demings is seen as an up-and-coming Democratic darling.
Battling it out
We’ve bought an early glimpse of how the mudslinging will go down — and that’s just about just like the races in the 2020 cycle the place Republicans labeled Democrats socialists. Linking them to the insurance policies of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one other tactic.
Ground Zero for such assaults was Miami-Dade, the place Democratic incumbents U.S. Reps Donna Shalala and Debbie Murcasel-Powell have been defeated by Republicans Maria Elvira Salazar and then-Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.
Rubio and Demings each have attention-grabbing origin tales.
Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and grew up in Miami-Dade’s exile group. He historically denounces communism and the governments of Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Russia and China. In a Twitter submit, Rubio known as Demings “a far-left Democrat” and a “do-nothing member of the House” who has not handed any important laws.
In her announcement speech, Demings described how she grew up poor in Jacksonville: “My father was a janitor and my mom was a maid,” she mentioned. She mentioned she is going to serve everybody
In the following 18 months, Floridians will see these tales stretched each which method. Game on!
