According to statements made on Tuesday, Florida Democrat Congressman Alan Grayson seems to be preparing a run for the U.S. Senate.
In an interview with The Hill newspaper, Grayson admitted that he was thinking about a run for the upper chamber likely against incumbent Florida Senator, Republican Marco Rubio.
“We have some very substantial advantages,” Grayson told The Hill. “I have over 100,000 individual contributors, no one else on the House Democratic side has anything like that. We have raised as much as $5 million in an individual cycle for a House seat, again there’s nobody [who has done that].”
Grayson did admit that if current Democrat National Committee Chair and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz were to run for the seat he would likely stand down, saying that she has a larger base of support than he does, especially nationally.
This isn’t the first time that rumors that Grayson was coveting Rubio’s seat have circulated. At the end of June rumors abounded that Grayson was in the hunt for the seat.
But Grayson has a few skeletons in his closet that might make a state-wide run for the Senate problematic, specifically his troubled marriage, rife with charges of abuse, and even claims from his wife that the Congressman threatened to kill her.
After 24 years of marriage to Lolita Grayson, the Congressman filed for an annulment of his marriage claiming bigamy. In return Mrs. Grayson accused the Congressman of abuse and leaving her and their five children without any financial support.
Still, Grayson claims that he is best qualified to run for the Senate in Florida because he has taken a large number of Hispanic votes.
“My district is… almost 40 percent Hispanic, and time after time I win 80 percent of the Hispanic vote,” he insisted. “I’ve shown that I can carry Hispanics like no one else in Central Florida, Democratic or Republican.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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