JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – U.S. Rep. Val Demings launched a bid for the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, raising hope among Democrats of ousting Florida’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio from the evenly divided chamber.
With the Senate now split 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, the Florida race will undoubtedly be among the nation’s most high profile and expensive battles next year.
The Orlando congresswoman used a video on social media to begin introducing herself to a wider audience. In the video, Demings showcases her rise from a working-class background to become the police chief of one of Florida’s largest cities before ascending to the U.S. Congress.
“When you grow up in the South, poor, Black and female, you have to have faith and progress and opportunity,” she says in her video.
News4Jax spoke with Demings on Wednesday afternoon during a teleconference. She was asked to explain how she plans to flip the seat to the Democratic party.
“I’d have to go back to being a law enforcement officer -- it didn’t matter to me your gender, your race, how much money you had in the bank and certainly your political party. What mattered to me was building a better future for people regardless of who they were,” Demings said.
Demings was on the short list of potential running mates for now-President Joe Biden after helping lead the first impeachment against then-President Donald Trump.
Some Florida Democrats had hoped that Demings would instead take on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is banking on reelection next year to help propel him for a possible run for the presidency in 2024.
In her Senate announcement video, Demings takes aim at Trump, calling him a “lawless president.” Then she takes aim at Rubio.
“There are some in Washington who prefer the same old tired ways of doing business,” she says, “too tired to fight the efforts to suppress the people’s vote. They fall back to tired talking points and backwards solutions.”
Rubio hit back Wednesday, calling Demings, who was first elected to Congress in 2016, a “far left extremist” with an undistinguished legislative record.
“Look, I’ve always known that my opponent for the Senate was going to be a far left liberal Democrat. Today we just found out which one of them Chuck Schumer’s picked,” Rubio says in a video, referring to the top Democrat in the Senate. He called her a “do-nothing” member of the U.S. House.
That’s an argument Democrats have also made in the Senate against Rubio, who they charge has been more focused on pursuing political ambition, not accomplishment. Rubio announced he would not run for reelection six years ago to make a bid for the White House in 2016 but abandoned that effort after getting little traction.
To face off with Rubio in November 2022, Demings would have to first win the Democratic primary. It remains to be seen if any other Democratic heavy hitters will get into the race.
News4Jax political analyst Rick Mullaney expects it to be one of the highest profile Senate races in the nation.
“The eyes of the nation will turn to this race,” Mullaney said. “The balance of power in the Senate will be a big big issue next year, but also there’s the overhang of the 2024 election, and whoever wins in Florida is something both parties want.”
As it became clearer that Demings was preparing a Senate campaign, U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, another Orlando Democrat, announced late last month that she would not be seeking the post.
Former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson is again hoping for a chance to go head-to-head against Rubio after failing in 2016 to advance through the Democratic primary. Miami City Commissioner Ken Russell announced last week that he is pursuing a bid, and Albert Fox Jr., who has espoused reestablishing stronger relations with Cuba, is considering a run.
If Demings wins the race, she would become only the third Black woman to serve in the Senate, after fellow Democrats Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, in the 1990s, and Kamala Harris of California, before she became Biden’s vice president.
Despite her law enforcement background, Republicans have attempted to tie Demings to activists calling for greater scrutiny on how police operate. Demings has forcefully pushed back by highlighting her 27 years as a law officer. Demings is married to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, also a former Orlando police chief.
Already, Rubio is attempting to brand Demings as a socialist — a playbook that Republicans have used with much success in Florida, which has a significant population of voters whose families fled Cuba and other Latin American countries with a history of repressive leaders.
“Desperate people will do and say desperate things,” Demings told the Orlando Sentinel in an interview ahead of her campaign launch, “and I don’t blame Rubio and the GOP for being very concerned about me running for the United States Senate against Marco Rubio.”