June 22, 2016

Marco Rubio Can’t Quit the Senate

In a reversal, the failed presidential candidate will seek re-election to his Senate seat.

Jim Mone/AP

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Marco Rubio spent the last year promising that he would not run for re-election to his Senate seat in Florida, and spent the better part of his doomed White House bid bashing the Senate. But on Wednesday, the Washington Post reports, Rubio will announce that he is reversing his pledge and in fact wants to spend another six years in a job he thinks doesn’t achieve anything.

As recently as a month ago, Rubio was unequivocal about his future plans.

In the past month, Republicans have put pressure on Rubio to reconsider. His name recognition could help the GOP hold his seat, and with it control of the Senate. Rubio, who is expected to run for president again, even as early as 2020, apparently has decided he wants to stay in the Senate, even though he really doesn’t like it there. Over the past year, Rubio has made a lot of comments disparaging the “dysfunctional” Senate. When he took flack during his presidential campaign for missing votes, he contended that the votes really didn’t matter anyway. “We’re not going to fix America with senators and congressmen,” he said in January. Perhaps he’s changed his mind.

At least one former foe of Rubio will be cheering his decision:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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