Five takeaways from the fiery Demings-Rubio debate in Florida

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and his Democratic rival, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), faced off in a bitter debate on Tuesday that underscored the stakes of the U.S. Senate contest in one of the country’s most unpredictable states.

The debate — the only face-to-face showdown between the two candidates — touched on everything from abortion rights to Florida’s wavering property insurance market and gave both candidates ample opportunity to go on the offensive mere weeks before Election Day.

Here are five takeaways from the Senate debate in Florida.

Bitterness spills into public view

If Rubio wins this race, it will be the senator’s third term in office.

The race between Rubio and Demings has often taken a back seat to Senate contests in other battlegrounds such as Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. But Tuesday night’s debate made clear it’s anything but a sleepy affair.

Demings sought to go on the attack throughout the night, delivering an aggressive performance in which she cast Rubio as little more than a career politician and reliable “yes” vote for the GOP in Washington.

Rubio, meanwhile, was anything but restrained. He repeatedly took swipes at Demings, claiming that she’s never passed a single piece of legislation in her six years in the House.

When it came to passing the Paycheck Protection Program, the stimulus bill approved early on in the coronavirus pandemic, Rubio said that Demings was sitting at home “in her pajamas” while a GOP-controlled Senate worked to save struggling U.S. businesses.

Overall, the debate put into stark relief the animosity between Rubio and Demings, making public the tensions that have been simmering between the two politicians for months.

Demings looks to cast doubt over Rubio’s record

Demings is looking to pick up steam as Rubio has been leading in the polls

If there was a throughline in Demings’s debate performance, it was her effort to raise doubts about the Florida Republican’s 12 years in the Senate.

“The senator, who has never run anything at all but his mouth, would know nothing about helping people and being there for people when they are in trouble,” Demings said early on in the debate.

But her criticism didn’t stop there. She blamed him for doing little to curb rising property insurance costs in Florida and ignoring the issue of gun violence in a state that has seen multiple mass shootings.

And in her closing statement, Demings touched on a talking point that has been repeated by Democratic candidates over the past couple of months, accusing Rubio of voting against an effort to cap insulin prices.

Rubio ties opponent to the far left

Rubio is known for describing opponents as “socialist” on policy disagreements.

Throughout the debate, Rubio turned to a familiar playbook for Republicans: casting his Democratic opponent as a socialist.

“I don’t know what word you prefer: socialist, Marxist, crazy? I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions,” Rubio said.

That line of attack isn’t novel. Republicans have used it for years to describe Democrats, whom they accuse of supporting out-of-control government spending and unreasonable regulations. 

Still, it’s one that has proved effective in Florida in the past. Republicans made huge gains in the Sunshine State two years ago, particularly among Hispanic voters in South Florida, by painting the modern Democratic Party as sympathetic toward — if not outright allied with — socialists and communists.

Demings for her part aggressively shot down those claims, hitting Rubio for using a tired GOP playbook.

“You’re repeating yourself,” she said. “We’ve seen this show before. ‘Socialist, socialist, crazy, Marxist.’”

Abortion, guns, foreign policy get top billing

Abortion has become a hot topic for the midterms due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade over the summer by the Supreme Court.

For all the state-specific issues raised in the debate, national — and even international — hot-button topics received top billing.

Rubio was put on the defensive over his support for a bill introduced by fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) that would ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Meanwhile, Demings attacked Rubio over what she described as his inaction on gun violence, referencing the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that left 49 people dead.

“Senator, you used the Pulse nightclub shooting as your inspiration to run again for the Senate in 2016,” she said. “Pulse is in my district. And yet you’ve done nothing, nothing to help address gun violence and get dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.”

The debate also featured a lengthy discussion on foreign policy, a topic that tends to get little attention in congressional races but one that often shows up in Florida politics. Rubio and Demings both insisted on the need to respond to Russian aggression amid that country’s invasion of Ukraine but differed on exactly what that would entail.

“We have to hold those who are not our friends accountable, and, senator, that does include Russia,” Demings said. “It’s not just China.”

Rubio, meanwhile, insisted that any response to Russian aggression would have to be an “allied response” coordinated with other members of NATO.

The debate doesn’t appear likely to change much

Florida has been trending Republican in recent elections, but still remains a state where it could be anyone’s game.

Demings, a rising Democratic star, has struggled to chip away at Rubio’s base of support in the way she’ll need in order to win in November. Tuesday’s debate doesn’t seem likely to change that.

The Republican senator received several rounds of applause throughout the debate and maintained a relatively cool demeanor in the face of Demings’s most aggressive attacks. 
Conversely, Rubio didn’t do much to alter perceptions of Demings, sticking to a tested list of Republican talking points throughout the debate.

That’s not exactly what Demings was hoping for. Polling shows her trailing Rubio by around 4 or 5 percentage points, and Republicans have been the beneficiaries of a winning streak in Florida in recent years. On Tuesday, The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, shifted the race into its “likely Republican” column.

Still, the Sunshine State is known for its unpredictable — and ultra-close — electoral contests, and even Republicans acknowledge the race is still in play.