Is Rubio Surging Too Soon?

Is Rubio Surging Too Soon?

By NOAH ROTHMAN / SEPT. 24, 2015
Commentary Magazine


Marco Rubio is having a moment. Not since the Florida Senator formally announced his intention to run for the presidency have so many voters and professional political observers turned their attentions his way. This phenomenon is most readily observed in the behavior of the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, Donald Trump, who has spent the majority of the last 48 hours hurling insults in the direction of the junior Senator from Florida. But is Rubio’s rise more a curse than a blessing? Even the senator’s campaign staff would concede that their long-term strategy for securing the nomination rests on the presumption that he would “peak” late enough so that this momentum could translate into early state primary victories. While Team Rubio would surely have preferred to see their candidate get his bounce a little later on in the cycle, they should rest assured that the senator has not yet reached his zenith in the polls.

Rubio has seen a measurable boost in support in public opinion surveys following the second Republican presidential debate. While his bounce has been less pronounced than Carly Fiorina’s, Rubio’s rise comes at a time when other candidates that Beltway-based Republicans might be predisposed to back are underperforming.

For Team Rubio, this is a welcome development. The junior Florida senator who seemed to be fading into the woodwork in the late summer has now emerged as a contender. That should provide some solace for high-dollar donors who might have fretted that to contribute to Rubio’s campaign at this stage was throwing good money after bad. Scott Walker’s exit from the race, in particular, has reportedly given Rubio’s candidacy a boost. “Mr. Rubio is set to inherit about two-thirds of Mr. Walker’s big-donor fundraising apparatus, according to a member of the Wisconsin governor’s national finance committee,” the Wall Street Journal reportedthis week.

Late September might not seem like an especially early date on the primary calendar, with the Iowa caucuses just fourteen weeks away, Rubio’s campaign staffers have not been coy about their desire to see their candidate fly under the radar for as long as possible. “We need everybody not named Marco to fizzle,” Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan toldPolitico. “That is the plan. We need everybody to slowly fizzle out, and we think they will.”

While an uptick in interest in Rubio among voters and donors might be warmly received by the campaign’s treasurer, an unspoken but nagging fear must certainly also be plaguing the senator’s team. Will Rubio peak too soon? Will a bubble develop around their candidate and hold him inauspiciously aloft for a time, only to burst before the first votes are cast? This is a justified fear. Given a series of national polls that put Rubio now in the top-tier set of candidates, and a shocking recent survey that shows the senator eclipsing even Jeb Bush in their mutual home state of Florida, the signs suggest that a modest bubble may be developing.

But Rubio’s campaign should not fear the bubble. More so than almost any other candidate in the race, Rubio is well positioned to increase his support from its current levels. The respected polling outfit Selzer & Co.’s latest Bloomberg Politics survey revealed that only Dr. Ben Carson has a higher favorability rating among Republicans. 60 percent of self-identified GOP voters reported holding a favorable opinion of Rubio with only 14 percent saying they had an unfavorable opinion. No other candidate in the field with a professional political background even comes close to these results. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found similar results and revealed that Rubio is the politician with the highest favorability rating with whom most voters are familiar. One-third of respondents reported having no opinion of Rubio because they had not heard enough about him. Though he placed only in single digits in both surveys, Rubio’s is positioned to build on that lead.

Perhaps most heartening for Rubio’s campaign staff is the fact that the Republican electorate seems more inclined to continue its flirtation with candidates that have never held political office even if Donald Trump’s present slide in the polls levels out. While rules are made to be broken, the Republican Party hasn’t nominated a figure without a political background to the office of the presidency since 1952. And while serving as a business mogul or an accomplished neurosurgeon are noteworthy accomplishments, they pale when compared to destroying Nazism in Europe.

To see why Rubio’s team has remained relatively confident in their current standing in the race, it is worth reviewing the March assessment of one of the best observers in the business of political punditry today: Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter.

“Rubio gets to go about his work without the same level of scrutiny that Walker and Bush get,” Walter wrote even before Rubio formally entered the race. “[His supporters] also see Rubio as a candidate who can endure for the long-haul thanks to his natural political talent. Where Bush struggles on the stump, Rubio shines. Where Walker fails to engage, Rubio connects emotionally.”

“A high-profile stumble by Bush or Walker could give the Florida Senator an opening,” she added.

“The debates could be another place for Rubio to break out.”

Today, according to the Real Clear Politics average of surveys, Jeb Bush’s substantial lead over the rest of the GOP’s 2016 field has collapsed following two lackluster debate performances. Scott Walker, a co-frontrunner just a few weeks ago, is out of the race. Rubio, meanwhile, gaining momentum on the eve of the season at which candidates begin to field targeted advertisements in key early states. He is not peaking, but continues a steady upward rise. That’s exactly where Rubio’s campaign had hoped to be by early autumn.

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