Sen. Marco Rubio rode into Washington as a tea party champion from Florida, but four years later, he has become a top pick for the Republican establishment in the presidential race.
He isn’t exactly running away from the establishment label despite its potential to undermine his campaign in an election cycle when Republican primary voters favor outsider candidates.
Republican Party strategists generally agree that Mr. Rubio has not repositioned himself as much as the political landscape underneath him has moved, with more fiery conservatives in the presidential contest, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, making him look like an establishment figure by comparison.
Still, the Rubio campaign has all but embraced the designation, angling to use the establishment lane in the race to assemble a coalition of traditional Republican voters.
“Part of his challenge is Ted Cruz is putting him in the establishment box, and he doesn’t appear to be in a hurry to get out of it,” said Republican strategist Michael McKenna.
“It is toxic to be the guy in favor of the status quo,” Mr. McKenna said. “There is a premium voters place upon candidates who appear to be ready to get into a fight. And whether you like him or don’t like him, and I like him a lot, Sen. Rubio does not look like a guy anxious to get in a brawl.”
Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Conant didn’t flinch at the suggestion that party insiders increasingly are turning to Mr. Rubio as a more palatable alternative to conservative firebrands such as front-runner Donald Trump and Mr. Cruz.
“I don’t worry too much about that,” Mr. Conant said.
Instead, he insisted that Mr. Rubio is still a tea party rebel.
“The message Marco is running on now is the same message he ran on in 2010: America is special and we’re in jeopardy of losing that,” he said. “If Marco is the Republican nominee, it will be the first time in decades that a grass-roots conservative has won the nomination.”
Taylor Budowich, spokesman for the national Tea Party Express, said the movement continues to claim Mr. Rubio as one of its own, as the line between tea party and establishment blurs.
“For Marco Rubio to be the establishment front-runner is more a testament to the success of the tea party than anything else,” Mr. Budowich said. “We’ve redefined what the GOP stands for and put a new face on the GOP candidate.”
Mr. Rubio is running in third place in most national polls, behind first-place Mr. Trump and second-place Mr. Cruz. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Mr. Trump at 28 percent, followed by Mr. Cruz at 24 percent and Mr. Rubio at 12 percent.
The three men finish in the same order in most other polls among primary voters in early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire. In his home state of Florida, Mr. Rubio placed second behind Mr. Trump, 30 percent to 20 percent, in a recent Florida Times-Union poll.
Rubio supporters argue that he is uniquely positioned to unite the party’s various wings by pulling together fiscal conservatives, military hawks and family values voters.
That recipe is appealing to a Republican establishment in a year when traditional candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have struggled to gain traction.
“Rubio is a rational candidate, and he realizes he needs to put together a coalition to win the nomination. That means winning conservative voters and traditional Republican voters,” said Republican Party campaign consultant Ryan Williams.
“The party has shifted, but I also think that Rubio has tried to flip-flop on some positions in order to appease enough base voters to put together the coalition that he thinks he’ll need,” Mr. Williams said.
He noted Mr. Rubio’s effort to distance himself from the immigration reform legislation he co-wrote as a member of the Senate’s bipartisan “Gang of Eight.” The bill, which passed the Democrat-run Senate in 2013 but languished in the Republican-led House, provided a path to citizenship or amnesty for illegal immigrants that is unacceptable to many conservative voters.
Mr. Cruz has hammered Mr. Rubio for supporting amnesty. Mr. Rubio has responded that he still supports an eventual path to citizenship but only after the country secures the southern border and fixes the legal immigration system.
“That’s a problem for him with a lot of base voters, but he thinks he can explain his position and move on,” Mr. Williams said.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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