Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is urging President Joe Biden to campaign against him in Florida in response to the president’s claim that Rubio, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) are “not on the side of police” after the left spent the last two years calling for the defunding of police.

“Leaders like Governor DeSantis, Senator Marco Rubio, and Senator Rick Scott are all opposed to banning assault weapons,” Biden, who previously supported the “redirecting” of police funds, tweeted Monday, adding, “And to me, it’s simple. If you can’t support banning weapons of war on America’s streets, you’re not on the side of police.”

Rubio responded to the tweet Tuesday morning, asking his followers to pray that Biden, who has an abysmal approval rating, “will come to Florida to campaign against me.”

Civiqs’ rolling job approval had the president at a dreadful 31 percent according to data compiled Monday. What is more, data from FiveThirtyEight earlier this month showed Biden had the worst approval rating of any president 18 months into office, dating back 75 years. On Tuesday, the University of New Hampshire Survey Center released a 2024 New Hampshire Democrat primary poll that showed Biden behind his Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg at 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively, further showing that Americans are fed up with the president. 

Rubio is vying for a third term in the U.S. Senate and is running unopposed in the state’s Republican primary. On the Democrat side, Rep. Val Demings (D-FL), Ricardo De La Fuente, Brian Rush, and William Sanchez are all hoping to land the nomination, but Demings has dramatically outperformed her primary opponents in fundraising. Federal Election Commission data shows she has just over $43 million in receipts versus Rubio’s $34.7 million, though the two-term senator beats her in cash-on-hand at $14.5 million to $12.5 million. 

Both Decision Desk’s and FiveThirtyEight’s midterm election forecast models project her to win her party’s nomination and then suffer a lopsided loss to Rubio. Decision Desk gives Rubio a 92 percent chance of beating the representative, while FiveThirtyEight awards him even more favorable odds, winning an average of 93 out of 100 races in simulations.

A recent Center Street PAC poll conducted on July 9 had Rubio eight points ahead of Demings, at 50 percent and 42 percent, respectively, among likely voters. Another eight percent were undecided. The race was closer among all adults, with Rubio taking 45 percent of the response versus Demings’ 40 percent, and another 15 percent were undecided.