Patrick Murphy (D), Marco Rubio’s (R) rival in the Florida senate race, is not going to take part in the Univision debate that was scheduled for the two, and Marco Rubio’s spokeswoman, Olivia Perez-Cubas, has some tough words for the former congressman.
“Patrick Murphy is blowing off the Univision debate, just like he’s blown off Florida’s Hispanic community for the last four years,” she says in a press release. “Clearly he doesn’t want to explain why he uses Dreamers as a talking point in this race, even though he voted to deport them in 2013. Or maybe he’s pulling out because he just doesn’t understand Florida’s Hispanics, a community he completely ignored until weeks before the election. This is just the latest example in Murphy’s long history of lying and ducking debates, compared to Marco’s record of achievement on behalf of all Floridians.”
Just nine days ago, Murphy suggested that “Florida’s Senate election should include a Spanish-language debate.” Rubio responded by agreeing to a debate on Univision, but now Murphy is backtracking. The Rubio camp suggests that he’s backing out now because, on June 6th, 2013, Murphy voted for legislation that would restart the deportation of Dreamers, and that’s likely to affect him negatively with the Hispanic community when he tries to explain why he did so.
In terms of the polls, Rubio is still leading with 46.8% to Murphy’s 43%.