Jeb Bush may be getting all the major scrutiny right now, but he's not the only guy from Miami who is running a not-quite presidential campaign. Senator Marco Rubio has been busy the past few months fundraising, touring early primary states on a book tour and considering his future.
Sure all that money could be used for his reelection to senate, but reports indicate that he may officially announce a presidential run as soon as early April.
The Associated Press reports that "nearly a dozen" people close to Rubio, all anonymous, naturally, say that Rubio is putting the final touches on his planning stage and could officially announce in a little over a month.
That's not much of a surprise. In late January he gathered 300 of his closest supporters at the Delano hotel in South Beach for a mini-conference of sorts on the future of Rubio's career. There he reportedly told staff to proceed as if he's running a presidential campaign.
Since then, he's been busy making stops in donor-rich California, and proceeding on a book tour that hit up Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. (That helped make him the senator that has missed more votes than any other sitting senator. Indeed his office offered the following excuse to New Times: "It's not unusual for presidential candidates to miss Senate votes. Senator Rubio has not made a final decision about 2016, but he's seriously considering running for president and taking the necessary steps to prepare a competitive campaign.")
Of course, a presidential run carries a lot of risk for Rubio. He would not be able to simultaneously run for reelection to his Senate seat in 2016, and a failed run for president means he might be out of elected politics completely. (Though, there's already rumors he could rebound by running for Florida governor in 2018.) He'd also be up against old pal Jeb Bush, and poll after poll show that even in Florida, Republican primary voters prefer Bush over Rubio.
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