The people of Florida watched Tuesday night as Sen. Marco Rubio and and his competitor, Rep. Val Demings, debated over controversial topics such as hurricanes, gun control, abortion, immigration and the Parkland shootings.
The two competitors kept the viewers entertained by constantly attacking each other throughout the entire debate, Rubio and Demings left no stone unturned when it came to putting down their opponent.
“I’m not the person standing on the stage who supports to suppress the right to vote,” Demings said. “Senator thinks we should leave that up to the states… we shouldn’t just protect the right for a few we should protect the rights for everyone and we need a federal to keep voting rights accountable.”
Demings, who is black, implied that Rubio, also a minority as a Hispanic, wants to make it harder for minorities to vote in elections.
“Its never been easy to vote in Florida. You can vote by mail by any reason,” Rubio responded. “To compare our voting rights now to the Jim Crow era, what are we talking about? Here I am a minority, I’ve never felt like producing an ID disadvantages my ability to vote. You can’t collect a bunch of ballots, harvesting ballots, we don’t need that law imposed on every state”.
Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion has been one of the hottest topics for debate and discussion. Rubio being pro-life, except in certain situations, and Deming being pro-choice left room for differences in opinion.
“We are not going back, senator, no matter how obsessed you are with a woman’s body and her right to choose,” she said. “We are not going back to a time where women are treated like second-class citizens or like property,” Demings said, according to NBC News
Throughout his career Rubio has supported the ban of abortion and has been in favor of laws that have exceptions, while also supporting abortion laws with no exception.
“I’m interested in saving human lives, and that’s why every law that’s out there has exceptions,” Rubio said. “We’re never going to get a vote on a law that doesn’t have exceptions.”
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