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Exclusive: A Florida law enforcement officer endorsing Sen. Marco Rubio is targeting his Democratic challenger, Rep. Val Demings, in the Republican incumbent’s latest campaign commercial.
The ad by Rubio and the National Senate Campaign Committee, first shared with Fox News on Friday, is the latest effort by senators to question the former Orlando Police Chief’s support for police funding and criminal and law enforcement issues take center stage in a high-profile, high-stakes, and costly Florida Senate election.
Part of the current seven-figure ad buy, according to Rubio’s campaign, the spot features a clip of Demings saying “America has failed,” from an interview on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in June 2020. starts with.
Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey denounced in the ad, “Rep. Demings, America has not failed. You have failed.”
First time on FOX: Demings uses new ad to push back Rubio’s ‘Defund the POLICE’ attack
Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods stresses, “America didn’t vote 100% for Nancy Pelosi. You did.”
Steve Zona, president of the Florida chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said, “America didn’t applaud funding the police. It was Val Demings,” followed by Bradford County Sheriff Gordon Smith. said Demings was “sold to liberals and we are turning our backs on law enforcement.”
Crime and Policing Key Issues in Florida’s High-Stake Senate Election
Ivey accused “Demings of going to Washington and becoming Pelosi’s puppet” and called the congressman “another radical rubber stamp”.
The ad is the second in the past two weeks to criticize Demings for voting in unison with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by Rubio and the Senate Republican reelection branch.
Rubio, who is serving a third six-year term, has repeatedly targeted Demings for his 2020 comments on proposals to collect funds and transform the police force following the Minneapolis, Minnesota murders. did. A black George Floyd by a white police officer.
Rubio Targets Ex-Police Chief Demings for Crime
He also criticized Demings for advocating limited liability overhauls in the past. Disqualification is a legal doctrine that protects officers from lawsuits for what they do on the beat, but critics argue that it protects law enforcement from accountability. I supported George Floyd’s justice in the 2021 Sedition Act. This included a clause stripping the police of any eligible exemptions. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House on party line, but was later defeated in the Senate.
Demings, who worked in law enforcement for almost 30 years and was promoted to become Orlando’s first female police chief, has repeatedly put her crime-fighting resume in the spotlight.
“The Senate protects Florida from bad ideas like defunding the police. It’s just crazy,” she stressed in an ad published in June. came.”
In a spot published Thursday and first reported by Fox News, several of Demings’ former law enforcement colleagues stressed that Demings “will never pay the police.”
Rubio enjoys a high-single-digit lead in recent polls, but so far Demings has outperformed incumbents. The $12.5 million raised far exceeded the $4.5 million brought in by senators in the same three-month period.
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The Senate showdown between Rubio and Demings could be one of the most costly of the cycle.
Democrats face historic headwinds and a difficult political climate as they try to maintain their majority in the Senate, which they will hold in November. And Florida, once an election hotbed, has been leaning into the red lately. The top independent political handicappers, including Fox News’ Power Rankings, rate the Florida Senate election as lean Republicans.