Despite rampant speculation that Sen. Marco Rubio was reconsidering running for reelection to his Senate seat, the Florida Senator intends to keep his word and leave at the end of his term. In fact, Rubio was on a phone call with major donors Friday morning to urge them to support his friend, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, Heat Street has learned.
The call was hosted by Trey Traviesa, who served in the Florida House of Representatives when Rubio was Speaker. Traviesa has been a long-time fixture in Rubio’s fundraising circles and was also a member of Mitt Romney’s national finance team.
Both Rubio and Lopez-Cantera were on the call. Two sources close to Rubio confirmed to Heat Street that Rubio was on the call to make it clear that he was not running for reelection and to urge the donors to support Lopez-Cantera financially. ”He was pitching CLC [the nickname for Lopez-Cantera] hard to these guys,” one source told us, laughing at how the call was taking place at the same time as media stories were flooding social media that Rubio was thinking of getting back in the race.
According to our sources, Rubio described to the donors how critical Florida would be to keep the Republican majority in the Senate, and said that Lopez-Cantera was the Republican candidate best suited to win in November. Heat Street has been unable to confirm the identities of the major donors who were on the call, but they are reportedly heavy hitters in the Republican fundraising world, and Rubio encouraged them to do everything they could to raise as much as possible for Lopez-Cantera.
Right now, Lopez-Cantera faces a crowded primary, including two members of Congress, Rep. Ron DeSantis and Rep. David Jolly, businessman Todd Wilcox, and millionaire homebuilder Carlos Beruff. Beruff dropped $3 million of his own money into the race, and has been blanketing Florida’s airwaves with ads in recent weeks.
Lopez-Cantera’s supporters argue that his position in a statewide office as Florida’s first Hispanic Lieutenant Governor and past success winning elections in the critically-important Miami-Dade County area make him the most formidable opponent to face the Democrats. Rep. Patrick Murphy and Rep. Alan Grayson are engaged in a very nasty primary battle of their own, with the majority of the Democratic establishment backing Murphy, progressive activists backing Grayson, and ugly accusations of misconduct and improper influence flying around on both sides.
Still, the crowded GOP primary has led to an increased chorus calling for Rubio to run for reelection to his seat. He may have lost the presidential primary to Donald Trump, but Rubio still enjoys favorable ratings in his home state, as well as higher name recognition than any of his would-be successors.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been openly agitating for Rubio to put his name back on the ballot, and even Trump tweeted his support:
Poll data shows that @marcorubio does by far the best in holding onto his Senate seat in Florida. Important to keep the MAJORITY. Run Marco!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2016
Politico’s Florida reporter Marc Caputo has been covering Rubio for years, and has been highly skeptical that Rubio would jump back in the Senate race. On Friday, Caputo tweeted his theory that Rubio was taking advantage of the media feeding frenzy to promote Lopez-Cantera, and posted an article addressing the issue:
“We need to make sure we get behind the right candidate in the primary to win. As I said, I think Carlos Lopez-Cantera is a very good candidate,” Rubio told Florida reporters earlier Thursday. “I understand the argument and the people who are coming forward and asking me to reconsider are people I respect and enjoy serving with. But I have a really good friend running for the Senate who I think is a good candidate, who I think gives us a real good chance to win if he were to be nominated.”
Rubio allies say that it’s almost impossible to think he would run for the seat now against Lopez-Cantera or ask him to drop out. Sources close to both men say they haven’t talked about Rubio running for reelection and that Lopez-Cantera is staying in for the long haul.
Rubio has not officially endorsed Lopez-Cantera yet, but did appear at a fundraiser for him earlier this month, and has been making supportive comments about him like the quotes in the Politico article with increasing frequency.
A long-time friend of Lopez-Cantera’s told Heat Street that they view Rubio as part of the team, and “greatly appreciate his ongoing and continuous support of the Lieutenant Governor and look forward to an endorsement in the near future.”
Follow Sarah Rumpf on Twitter: @rumpfshaker.
