Politico Reports: With Republicans controlling Florida’s governor’s office and Legislature, the GOP presidential nominee will have at least a 50 percent shot at winning the crucial swing state next year, freshman Sen. Marco Rubio said Tuesday.
With statewide or national races, he said, Florida voters are “more open-minded” and often vote for candidates in the other party. That’s why Republican George W. Bush twice won the state, in 2000 and 2004, and Democrat Barack Obama took it in 2008.
“It is a toss-up state. It’s “neither a blue nor red state.” — that would make it, I guess, a purple state. And I think it’s a place where all the national issues are front and center,” the former Republican Florida House speaker said during a POLITICO Playbook Breakfast at the Newseum.
Asked by POLITICO moderator Mike Allen the odds of the eventual GOP presidential nominee winning the Sunshine State, Rubio replied: “Good — at least 50-50, given the circumstances. But that vote is going to have to be earned.”
Rubio, a rising GOP star often mentioned on the vice presidential short list, said Republicans can beat Obama in Florida by laying out a “compelling vision” of how they can improve the country and make the 21st century what he calls the “American century.”
That vision needs to be conveyed in a “positive, optimistic way because people at their core, even though they’re pessimists in the short term, believe that things can get better,” Rubio said. “They are looking for someone to show them the way. It’s important for Republicans to show them a very clear contrast from… the president’s record over the past four years.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Rubio discussed immigration, foreign policy and the deficit-cutting supercommittee, among other issues.
