A.G. Gancarski
When Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry endorsed Marco Rubio for President Sunday, it seemed like a logical and predictable move.
In some respects, it was set up nine months ago when Rubio came in to support Curry at a rally before the May election that saw the former RPOF chair swept into office. Rubio’s presence was the punctuation mark on a bruising campaign that saw Curry rise from limited name recognition to narrow victory.
In other respects, it was set up long before that. Rubio has always been at home in Duval County, a point he made in May when he recalled that the Duval Republican Executive Committee was among the first to let him speak when he started his run for U.S. Senate.
The Duval REC gave Curry his first office also: as Treasurer, then Chairman.
All of this is to say that Curry and Rubio are uniquely linked on their paths, in a way that wouldn’t be true for Curry and the other two candidates.
Most of the Duval Republican establishment supports Rubio, especially now that Jeb Bush is out of the race. That said, there are some notable outliers.
Former party chair Rick Hartley backs Ted Cruz. And Susie Wiles, arguably the consummate insider in the modern era, is Trump’s Florida Co-Chair.
Donald Trump drew, by far, the biggest crowd when he came to the Jacksonville Landing of any candidate this cycle. The crowd was light on insider types; I saw one operative who seemed ashamed to have been spotted there, saying that he walked across the street out of curiosity. Thousands of people were in attendance, and the Landing was jam-packed that day.
Does Cruz or Rubio command that level of enthusiasm yet with Jacksonville voters? That remains to be seen.
With Curry and other establishment Republicans backing Rubio, an interesting exercise is to ask what success looks like in Jacksonville for the Florida Senator?
A majority mandate? A simple plurality win?
Rubio’s endorsement by Curry, three weeks out from the Florida primary, brings the full force of Curry’s machine into play. It also turns this primary in Duval County into a referendum on the Mayor and the other politicians who follow Curry’s lead and endorse Rubio.
The concept of a referendum is worth watching; Jacksonville’s financial future is predicated on a sales tax referendum vote, which Curry has used a lot of political capital to get through Tallahassee.
A strong Rubio showing, which would seemingly jibe with Rubio carrying a similarly coastal and military-centric urban area in the form of Charleston County in Saturday’s South Carolina primary, would also serve as a push poll on how much the mayor’s endorsement means in this area.
To win Florida, Rubio will have to stack up votes down south, of course, but also in Northeast Florida, where the elements of his coalition may disagree on some issues, yet all share an interest in him getting elected.
If Trump (or Cruz) carries the county, what does that say about voters’ appetite for that coalition?
