Marco Rubio attack ad likens Val Demings to the ‘socialist Squad’

Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has released a new video slamming the voting record of Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings, who is running to unseat him next year.

The campaign ad, which went public Tuesday on Rubio’s YouTube page, comes only days after Florida Politics published the results of a poll showing Rubio holds just a 2-percentage-point lead over Demings.

In the 30-second video, Rubio’s campaign likens Demings, a former Orlando Police Department Chief, to one of the so-called “Squad,” a group of four Democratic Representatives known for being among the most progressive members of Congress. The name refers to U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib of New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Michigan, respectively. The group has since added two, including New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush.

The video first takes aim at President Joe Biden’s proposed spending plan, which could see $5 trillion over the next decade spent on U.S. infrastructure, environmental safeguards, social safety nets for working families and broader access to publicly funded education.

Republicans say the bill will lead to the “largest tax hike in history,” a dubious talking point the party has reused in the past and that Rubio’s video repeats.

“Val Demings votes with the socialist Squad 94% of the time. Their latest act: forcing their $5 trillion liberal wish list on the American people,” a voice-over in the video says while an image plays on-screen of Demings with Ocasio-Cortez and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is not a member of the group. “AOC called this ‘an enormous progressive victory’ — the largest tax hike in American history.”

The video says the bill will foster “amnesty for illegal immigrants with criminal records” and finance the Green New Deal, a proposed public policy initiative to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating high-paying jobs in the renewable energy sector.

It then cuts to a clip of Ocasio-Cortez saying, without context, that “without this movement, we would be having a bunch of tax cuts.”

The voice-over then returns.

“Floridians deserve to know, will Demings once again fall in line with the socialist Squad?”

Comments for the video are turned off.

Demings launched her campaign for Senate in June, challenging Rubio under the theme “Never Tire.”

In a June 9 campaign video accompanying the announcement, she cited her role as an impeachment manager in former President Donald Trump‘s first impeachment trial.

“We brought law and order to a lawless President,” she said in a video accompanying her campaign launch, which depicted Rubio as an entrenched and complacent Washington insider.

Rubio voted against impeaching Trump, both times.

“Unlike some in Washington, I never tire of standing up for what I believe is right because no one is above the law,” she said in the video. “But it turns out that there are some in Washington who prefer the same old tired ways of doing business, too tired to fight the efforts to suppress the people’s vote. They fall back to tired talking points and backward solutions.”

Rubio fired back the same day, calling Demings a “do-nothing House member … without a single legislative achievement during her time in Congress” in a selfie video he posted to Twitter.

“I’ve always known that my opponent for Senate was going to be a far-left, liberal Democrat,” he said. “Today, we just found out which one of them (Senate Majority Leader) Chuck Schumer picked.”

Demings has proved herself a formidable fundraiser so far. Last month, she reported a first quarter fundraising haul of $4.6 million.

According to Fox News, that places her ahead of Rubio, who raised $600,000 less in April, May and June

Watch the video below.