Republican Marco Rubio, long-time critic of China, wins 3rd US Senate term
- Marco Rubio, whose presidential ambitions were thwarted by Donald Trump in 2016, has served in the US Senate since 2011
- Republican Rubio is a long-time critic of China and senior member of the Committee on Foreign relations
Republican US Senator Marco Rubio has won a third term, defeating congresswoman Val Demings and holding a key seat as the Republican Party tried to regain control of a closely divided Senate.
Rubio, 51, faced perhaps his toughest battle since he was first elected in 2010 after serving as the Florida House speaker. Once a presidential hopeful in 2016, Rubio’s name is less often mentioned as a potential 2024 candidate.
Rubio ran a campaign pulled from the Republican playbook, tying Demings to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden and hammering her on issues like spending, rising inflation and a crisis at the southern border.
The Republican was helped by shifting voter registration numbers in Florida. The last time Rubio ran for re-election, Democrats had about 327,000 more registered voters than Republicans.
That has since flipped, with the Republican Party now having a nearly 300,000 advantage over Democrats.
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 US.
During his first Senate campaign, Rubio repeatedly reminded voters of his working class background and “only in America” story as the son of Cuban immigrants who became a US senator. His father was a bartender and his mother a hotel maid.
