Senator Marco Rubio, once regarded as a potentially vulnerable Republican incumbent, now looks poised to cruise to victory in Florida’s race for U.S. Senate next week. His final advertisement of the campaign, a 60-second slot debuting on Fox News today, neglects to mention his opponent, Val Demings — or any Democrat at all. Instead, the ad — titled simply: “America” — is a largely nonpartisan testament to “the greatest country in the history of the world,” as Rubio puts it in one of the clips, interspersed with the Republican senator’s personal backstory as the son of Cuban immigrants. In America, Rubio intones, “We aren’t defined by the color of our skin. We’re defined by rights that come from God.”
The only noticeably political undertone comes in the final seconds of the ad, which feature an implicit rebuke of recent left-wing criticisms of the United States: “In America, our history isn’t perfect. But we never stop striving to be better. Here, each generation leaves the next one better off. This is our country. And if you don’t love it, you’re free to leave it. But we will never allow anyone to destroy it.”
Amid the GOP’s “summer swoon,” Demings — a progressive darling who raked in cash from national donors on her promise to unseat Rubio — appeared to be gaining momentum. Over the summer, the Democratic challenger outraised and outspent the Republican incumbent, flooding the Florida airwaves with campaign ads and closing the race to a low-single-digit gap in the polls. But as the GOP’s national prospects rebounded over the course of the past two months, Rubio’s polling numbers surged. As of this writing, the FiveThirtyEight average places him at a comfortable 7.4-point lead. Last month, the Cook Political Report moved the race from “Lean Republican” to “Likely Republican.” “Early on, Democrats made GOP Sen. Marco Rubio a target, especially after landing Rep. Val Demings as a challenger and clearing the field for her,” Cook’s Jessica Taylor wrote. But “we haven’t seen the type of movement toward Demings that she needs to pull off an upset in a state like Florida.” It’s “possible to get to 46 or 47 percent as a Democrat in the state, but that may be the ceiling regardless, especially this cycle,” Taylor said. And “getting those final few points in a state like Florida is herculean.”