Republican Sen. Marco Rubio won a third term Tuesday, defeating Democratic Rep. Val Demings in a race that could help decide control of the narrowly divided Senate.
With more than 88% of the vote in, Rubio was the projected winner over Demings, NBC News reported.
"I am more energized and excited about working in the Senate than I've been at any other time because I believe we on the cusp of a new generation of leadership in this Republican Party that will restore common sense, that will put hardworking Americans first, and that will leave for our children what they deserve to inherit: the greatest country in the history of the world," Rubio told supporters at a victory rally Tuesday night.
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Demings, 65, is a third-term congresswoman who prominently featured her background as a police officer and Orlando’s first female police chief.
"I ran for the Senate, because we can never stop striving to form that more perfect union," Demings said at a concession speech Tuesday night. "No, it's not easy. It's never been easy, but nothing ever worth it is ever easy. But I came tonight to tell you it's worth the fight."
Rubio, 51, had relatively easy paths to his first two Senate victories, defeating Rep. Patrick Murphy in 2016 by nearly 8 percentage points and winning a three-way race in 2010 when then-Gov. Charlie Crist ran as an independent and peeled away votes from Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek.
Rubio had been hoping incumbency would give him an edge in a state where in four years Republicans not only reversed a decades-long Democratic advantage in registered voters, but now hold a nearly 300,000 voter lead. Republicans also tend to outperform Democrats during midterm elections in Florida.
DECISION 2022
Rubio ran for president in 2016, winning the Minnesota primary before dropping out of the race eventually won by Donald Trump. Rubio initially said he wouldn’t seek a second term, which led to a scramble of GOP candidates looking to fill his seat. But Rubio changed his mind just before candidate qualifying ended and easily won a second term.
As vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Committee on Foreign relations, Rubio has pushed for taking a harder line against China and returning manufacturing of critical supplies like prescription drugs to the United States.
Demings entered the race after raising her national profile by playing a prominent role in Trump’s first impeachment and by being on President Joe Biden’s list of potential running mates.
During his first Senate campaign, Rubio repeatedly reminded voters of his working class background, saying it was an "only in America” idea that the son of Cuban immigrants could become a U.S. senator. His father was a bartender and his mother was a hotel maid.
Demings has a similar "only in America" story. She grew up in Jacksonville, where segregation was still an issue, as the daughter of a janitor and maid. She was the first in her family to graduate from college and began her career in social work before becoming a police officer.
Rubio used the GOP playbook against Demings, saying she was in perfect lockstep with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and partnered with Biden and Pelosi in driving up inflation. He also accused Demings of being a radical who supported socialist policies and criticized her for a budget proposal supported by Democrats.
“If you want to talk about radical plans, Congresswoman Demings supported a radical plan,” Rubio said in their only debate. "She actually voted for the crazy people’s budget, a socialist budget."
Early in the race, he also accused her of supporting defunding the police, an attack that had little credibility given her law enforcement background.
During the debate, Demings said Rubio had repeatedly lied about her record by falsely accusing her of supporting abortion up until the moment of birth — the Democrat said she supports abortion until viability, the limit that had been in place prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
"The senator has obviously resorted to lying, cheating and trying to steal,” she said. “How gullible do you think Florida voters are, senator? How gullible?”
Demings largely focused her attacks on Rubio on his poor attendance record and his support of a national abortion ban. Rubio has said he supports a ban on abortion without exceptions, but has voted for abortion restrictions with exceptions like rape and incest because he doesn’t think a bill would pass without those exceptions.
