Joe Henderson: By not losing, Marco Rubio likely won the debate with Val Demings

Whether you support Marco Rubio or Val Demings in their race for the U.S. Senate, your opinion probably didn’t change after Tuesday night’s debate.

In my opinion, neither candidate won nor lost, but that probably means Rubio won. After all, he has a strong lead in the polls, and I doubt that will change much. If you went into the debate with a bias for one or the other, you probably heard what you wanted to hear and didn’t agree with what you heard from the other side.

That’s not a game-changer.

I mean, what was the headline?

Social Security?

Demings attacked U.S. Sen. Rick Scott’s plan to sunset — read: possibly cancel — Social Security and Medicare in five years.

Rubio’s rebuttal: “No, that’s not my plan. That’s Sen. Scott’s plan.”

Abortion rights? That was the most contentious exchange of the debate, to no surprise for anyone who supported either candidate’s position.

Rubio stated, “I’m 100% pro-life,” but added that he favors exemptions. He didn’t say what those were.

Demings fought back.

“Senator, how gullible do you think Florida voters are? Number one, you have been clear that you support no exceptions, even including rape and incest. As a police detective who investigated cases of rape and incest, no, Senator, I don’t think it’s OK for a 10-year-old girl to be raped and have to carry the thing of her rapist.

“No, I don’t think it’s OK for you to make decisions for women and girls. As a Senator, I think those decisions are between the woman, her family, her doctor, and her faith. And to stand over there and say I don’t support abortion up to the time of birth is just a lie. But to help protect the life of the mother, it’s just you who looks at that like, well, that’s kind of a side issue. Senator, you know that you have said you don’t support any exceptions.”

Rubio countered that Demings attacked a bill Rubio supported that has exceptions.

“She’s talking about extremes; here’s extremes,” Rubio said. “A child that’s born alive after a failed abortion happened eleven times in Florida in 2017. It happened eight times in 2020 — a child of a failed abortion born alive. We have doctors in America that refuse to treat or provide medical care to a child that’s born alive.”

Demings fought back.

“What we know is that the Senator supports no exceptions,” she said. “He can make his mouth say anything today — he’s good at that, by the way. What day is it, and what is Marco Rubio saying? I’ve said time and time again, and he knows it, that I support a woman’s right to choose up to the time of viability.”

“We are not going back to a time when women are treated like second-class citizens or like property.”

Well, that encapsulated the abortion rights debate, but — as was famously said by Democratic operative James Carville in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

That will decide this election, which doesn’t bode well for Demings. As a Democrat, she’ll be tied to the economic problems in President Joe Biden’s term.

So, here we are.

Both candidates made their cases, and neither made the Big Gaffe that could turn an election. Only two weeks remain to change hearts and minds.

Did that happen Tuesday night?

It depends on which side you’re on, I guess.

The post Joe Henderson: By not losing, Marco Rubio likely won the debate with Val Demings appeared first on Florida Politics - Campaigns & Elections. Lobbying & Government..

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