ORLANDO, Fla. — When U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio ended his run for the White House in 2016 and was considering getting back into the U.S. Senate race, he took up the cause of rundown apartment complexes across the state, targeting what he called slumlords.
The move not only got the senator back into the public eye, but also paired him with his colleague from across the aisle, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Since then, the two have teamed up on dozens of projects, often finding common ground on issues important to the state, including school safety legislation, aid for Puerto Rico, Florida agriculture and violence restraining orders.
But while the two have worked closely for years, 2018 is an election year, and Rubio says, despite the friendship, he will support the GOP nominee.
“Here’s the bottom line: I do respect Bill Nelson. We do work well together. But come election time, I’m going to support the Republican nominee,” said Rubio in an interview with Eyewitness News.
“I want my party to be in the majority, because there is a lot of things we want to do that we can’t do right now because we don’t have the votes.”
There are 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and two independents in the U.S. Senate. Of the 100 members in the Senate, 33 senators are up for re-election this year, including 23 Democrats, both independents and eight Republicans.
Of those, Nelson is the only southern Democrat up for re-election in 2018. He is also in a state that President Donald Trump won by more than 112,000 votes in 2016.
But because Rubio won’t be supporting Nelson, don’t expect him to be targeting him with attacks either.
“I will not be out there campaigning against somebody that I respect and work with. I will be out there supporting the Republican nominee, who I believe will be Gov. Scott,” said Rubio. “By the way, it’s what Bill Nelson did when I ran (2016) and what I did when he had his last re-election.”