sen. marco rubio cruised to reelection for his senate seat after his white house hopes sputtered out. | ap photo by sergio bustos 11/08/16 08:11 pm est updated 11/08/16 08:17 pm est west palm beach, fla. <u+2014> after a tumultuous political year, marco rubio tuesday easily defended his senate seat, dispatching democratic challenger patrick murphy by an expected wide margin. rubio<u+2019>s had been seen as the favorite, but public polling remained tight in the final days, as the miami lawmaker fended off questions about donald trump, whose controversial comments sometimes hurt rubio<u+2019>s ability to stay on message with the media. story continued below ultimately, though, rubio was able to use his huge money advantage experience and name recognition <u+2014> earned while running unsuccessfully for president <u+2014> to trounce murphy. the two-term jupiter congressman was seen by even some in his own party as too young and inexperienced. throughout the campaign, rubio and outside republican super pacs were able to use media reports about murphy embellishing his professional resume in attack ads that only helped cement the negative perception. rubio had not initially planned to seek re-election after long saying he would return to private life following his failed white house bid. he changed his mind after the previous gop field failed to gather momentum, and national republicans feared they could lose the seat, which would have larger implications for control of the senate. if hillary clinton wins, democrats need to win four seats to take control of the senate, a number that jumps to five if trump wins. others states seen as key to the battle over control of the chamber are in indiana, nevada, new hampshire, pennsylvania, north carolina, and missouri. helping matters for rubio is the fact that his outside allies had far outspent the murphy campaign both on the ground and on the airwaves. last month, politico florida reported that ad spending in the race had reached $40 million, of that $26 million funded pro-rubio ads or attack ads against murphy. rubio<u+2019>s campaign raised $13 million, including $2.6 million that came from political action committees or joint fundraising agreements. that included $200,000 from a joint fundraising committee that also backed senate candidates todd young of indiana and joe heck of nevada. outside of his campaign, groups like the nra, the u.s. chamber of commerce, and a super pac called the senate leadership fund also poured money into the state to help rubio. murphy<u+2019>s campaign brought in $14 million, slightly more than rubio<u+2019>s, but was hurt by the fact that outside groups came to rubio<u+2019>s help in larger numbers. national democrats pulled nearly $10 million in tv ads and hillary clinton<u+2019>s campaign never came through with promised financial help. because murphy had far less television resources, he had a difficult time defining his own campaign. it<u+2019>s part of the reason attacks on his professional resume, including his time as a cpa stuck and helped define his campaign. he was also hurt by a surge in hispanic voters before election day. about 980,000 voted this year compared to only about 552,000 in 2012, according to dan smith, a university of florida political science professor who published early voting data on his must-read election smith blog. of the 6.4 million voters who cast ballots before election day, nearly 15 percent were hispanic, a roughly 3 percentage point increase from 2012. even as hispanic voters disapproved of trump in large numbers, rubio remained popular with them in most public polling. murphy dismissed the idea that his campaign waited too long to reach out to hispanic voters. he hired an hispanic consultant for "messaging and strategy" in late september. <u+201c>i<u+2019>ve been reaching out to hispanic voters from before my first run for the u.s. congress,<u+201d> he said tuesday morning during a campaign stop at a miami lakes, fla., polling location. he was joined by former sen. bob graham. <u+201c>i represent a very diverse district in the palm beach, treasure coast area, many hispanic voters there, and i<u+2019>ve continued to reach out to them throughout my race for the u.s. senate,<u+201d> he said. polls show murphy was trailing incumbent republican sen. marco rubio, who is cuban-american, by as many as 7 percentage points. full results : http://politi.co/2ecjzp9 by bill scher by joshua zeitz by thomas wright by jack shafer
senate 2016 results: rubio wins reelection in florida - politico
jack shafer