Rubio Weighs Jumping Back Into Senate Race
Rubio previously said he would not be running.
— -- Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio will be doing much more than celebrating Father’s Day back home with his family this weekend.
He’ll also be deciding whether or not to rejoin the race for his Senate seat, which he had previously said he would abandon whether or not his presidential campaign was successful.
“I'll go home later this week, and I'll have some time with my family. If there's been a change in our status, I'll let everyone know,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Rubio got a boost Friday when Rep. David Jolly, who had been running in a crowded Republican primary to be Rubio’s successor, announced that he would instead run for re-election for his own Congressional seat.
“A year later, it's clear the opportunity to change Washington, to do right by my community, is to simply ask for the opportunity to keep doing my job,” Jolly said in an email to supporters.
Rubio said this week that the mass shooting in his home state had driven him to reconsider “everything that’s going on,” including whether or not he should stay in the Senate.
Rubio has until the June 23 filing deadline to make up his mind. The Florida primary elections are held on Aug. 30.
But the primary field is still full, with contenders including Cuban-American businessman Carlos Beruff, whose outspokenness has hurtled him to the top of the field, Rubio’s personal friend Lt. Gov Carlos Lopez-Cantera, Rep. Ron DeSantis and former CIA officer Todd Wilcox.
Lopez-Cantera has also said he encouraged Rubio to jump back into his Senate after the Orlando shooting. Rubio confirmed that the two men spoke Sunday before he returned to Washington D.C.