Virginia’s Tenth District Congresswoman Barbara Comstock has a message for Republicans across the Commonwealth: Marco Rubio is the party’s strongest choice as a Presidential nominee to retake the White House in November.
Thus far, Comstock has been an enthusiastic supporter of Rubio on the campaign trail, as she rallies her supporters, attends events, and speaks out as a powerful campaign surrogate. In the closing hours of Virginia’s presidential preference primary, Comstock has another message for Republicans: get involved and help unite the party behind the candidate she feels is best-positioned to retake the White House for Republicans in November.
Comstock, a battle-tested GOP campaigner, knows a thing or two about winning challenging races: since 2009, she’s won a total of five races in tough Northern Virginia districts, including her strong victory in 2014 which first sent her to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Comstock wants Republicans to get involved in making the final push for Rubio – a candidate her expertise tells her has what it takes to win.
“They can post ‘I’m With Marco’ pictures – go on his Facebook Page, MarcoRubio.com, and they can also email their friends, send them the messages”, urged Comstock, in asking Rubio supporters to make a final grassroots push to their friends and family on behalf of the Florida Senator.
Though the hour is late, as Comstock explains, “there are phone calls.”
“I always worked the polls until 6:59 and 59 seconds – actually, if there’s a line, I go a little longer, because if you’re in line by 6:59, you get to stay, so I stay there until the last voter has voted.”
“I’m going to be working the polls Tuesday morning,” said Comstock, in explaining her dedication to keep campaigning up through election day.
For Comstock, the road to supporting Rubio’s Presidential campaign began over six years ago when the two struck up a friendship over shared conservative ideas and principles.
In describing her first meeting with the Florida Senator, Comstock recalled, “I first met him at the end of 2009 right after I had won and I knew I had won in a tough district that unseated an incumbent, and he was serving then as Speaker of the House in Florida. He really had lived the American Dream, understood in it like in his gut, because his parents work hard like that.”
“He just had this sense of conviction and passion about the power of ideas and the power of conservatism being the way to freedom for everybody.”
Comstock knew Rubio long before he was running for the Presidency, and shared an opportunity she had to bond over shared priorities early in Marco’s tenure as a U.S. Senator, including policies she’s championed herself, such as doubling the child tax credit through legislation she’s introducing in the House.
Speaking of Rubio’s companion Senate bill, Comstock said, “He’s already got one in.”
Throughout the conversation, Comstock recalled a diverse array of policy priorities she and Rubio share, which underpin her longstanding and enthusiastic support. For a policy-oriented Congresswoman like Barbara, Marco is a natural fit.
“He’s really a policy wonk. He’s trying to find out how you can make conservatism work for everybody – because he believes it does and wants to spread that message in a way that’s uniting people, that wins over and brings together the things that we all agree on as Republicans: free markets, free minds, and American exceptionalism, while bringing independents into the fold.”
Bringing independents and Democrats into the GOP fold this November will be essential for a Republican victory, particularly in competitive districts – including the one Comstock calls home.
Victory in Comstock’s Tenth Congressional District will be key for winning Virginia as a whole for Republicans this November. Home to key swing areas such as Loudoun County, the Tenth District represents an emerging kind of challenge for Virginia Republicans in connecting with a diverse electorate united around a key, shared goal: keeping alive our American Dream.
“First-generation Americans can look at someone like him and say, ‘he’s lived my life’,” explained Comstock, in relating Rubio’s electability to the district she knows well and all others like it.
Comstock is right: the story of Marco Rubio’s journey towards the American Dream closely parallels that of many first-generation families who seek prosperity and a good family life made possible by pro-growth, conservative policies expanding free markets and the opportunity they provide.
Comstock’s Tenth District is home to a diverse array of communities and hosts Virginia’s greatest concentrations of Indian-Americans and Asian-Americans, among other distinct, electorally-relevant groups whose interests align with a mainstream Republican platform – if only the party puts forth a standard bearer capable of expanding the GOP tent, as she has done in the Tenth, just as Congressman Frank Wolf did before her.
Comstock said of Rubio, “He’s worked on human rights issues, religious freedom, like our former Congressman Frank Wolf. Somebody, obviously, who I’ve worked closely with, so I know he’s in the same vein as him.”
“Our Indian communities, our Pakistani communities, Korean communities, Hispanic communities, obviously, African-Americans can look at somebody like him and say: ‘he gets my life. He understands I’m struggling and I need less regulation on my business, I need to be able to keep more money to take care of my kids.”
Comstock sees her optimism for Rubio’s candidacy as a natural outgrowth of the priorities she’s championed on behalf of her district: namely, a desire to keep the American Dream alive and welcome more families to the ranks of the middle class by focusing upon job creation and economic growth.
Comstock joins the ranks of other Congressional Republicans in expressing her frustration at President Obama’s continued obstruction towards a host of bipartisan, pro-growth bills sent to his desk by a Republican Congressional majority.
“I want a president who will sign the Keystone Pipeline bill that we got to the President’s desk, that will sign the repeal and replace [of Obamacare] bill that we put on the President’s desk already, that will sign tax reform that includes larger tax credits and business tax reform lowering our corporate tax rate so you can bring businesses back from overseas, gives jobs, put people back to work.”
For Comstock, the solution is straightforward: Republicans must recapture the White House this November, and to do that, they must, first and foremost, nominate a candidate who can win.
“We’ve got a conservative House, we’ll keep a conservative Senate if we have the right kind of candidate like Marco, so we’ll be able to put all those bills that I talked about on his desk, have a renaissance in our economy, strengthen our national security, and then we’ll get to work on things like how do we get more money into research, how do we do long term structural reforms?”
Without a Republican victory in November, efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, reform our tax code, and pass job-creating legislation in favor of projects such as Keystone XL will surely be obstructed by Democrats for at least four more years.
Though economic pessimism abounds in a nation wearied by the failed economic policies of President Obama, under whose leadership GDP growth has not reached 3% for a single year, Comstock sees Rubio’s optimistic, pro-growth platform as the key to restoring economic growth – to 4%, and perhaps beyond.
“I hope we have more than that,” exclaimed Comstock, when asked whether a Rubio Presidency would enable the nation to hit the ambitious but necessary 4% growth target.
“When you look around what’s going on here in Loudoun County, there’s no reason with the technology community we have, with the health care explosion and what’s going on in the private sector as well as what we’re trying to do in the government,” continued Comstock. “We should have more than 4% if we get the regulation out of the way, get tax reforms that bring business back here, and then we can lead the world in having an American Renaissance.”
Comstock cautioned Republicans of the risks she sees inherent in nominating Donald Trump, citing a February 16th poll released by Christopher Newport University which found that, among all Virginia voters, Marco Rubio holds the highest favorability rating, at 44%, with 17% undecided. Conversely, in the same poll, 64% of Virginia voters held an unfavorable view of frontrunner Donald Trump, with only 5% undecided. Among all candidates of both parties, only John Kasich had a lower unfavorability rating than Rubio, at 32%, though 39% of voters surveyed held an undecided attitude towards the Ohio Governor.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who trails Rubio by roughly five points according to the latest RCP averages for Virginia, registered 52% unfavorable in CNU’s poll, with 16% of Virginian voters still undecided.
The takeaway is clear and supportive of Comstock’s position: Rubio has the potential to unite the party in its shared goal of winning in November over Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton – who, at this point, is all but certain of being the Democratic nominee. Of all candidates remaining, Rubio’s path to victory in key battleground states such as Virginia is best supported by the available data.
“Hillary has unfavorables, too, but not as high as Donald Trump’s – and Marco has higher positives than they do,” explained Comstock, in making the case for Republicans uniting behind her choice of Rubio, the candidate she believes can win. “I think that’s because he has a positive message. So he’ll be able to run with that, get out there, and build on growing our party, not kicking people out. Unfortunately, we have some people in our party who want to kick people out.”
Rubio’s chief challenge remaining in the one day remaining before Virginia’s polls close is uniting a coalition of anti-Trump Republicans behind his candidacy. Even in this late hour, Comstock sees encouraging signs: voters are switching in an effort to topple Trump.
“Yesterday I had breakfast with someone who is a Kasich supporter, who said ‘I’m switching my vote because I realize Marco is the person, and it’s a two-man race,’” said Comstock.
Comstock also appealed for the votes of those supporting retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, explaining, “Ben Carson has been someone who is optimistic and a good person. Marco hasn’t attacked Ben Carson the way the other two candidates have. Marco has been very friendly with him.”
In Comstock’s view, even Cruz supporters should and are switching and uniting against the toxic tycoon.
“I’ve seen Cruz people switch to Marco, also, because Senator Cruz, certainly in Virginia, is far behind Marco. We need to get behind someone who can win, and most importantly, win in November, too.”
For Comstock, retaking the White House in November will be essential in translating Republican-led legislation into law.
Asked whether Rubio was the perfect reflection of the “Buckley Rule,” Comstock replied, “Exactly!”
In the closing hours, all candidates will be making their final push to persuade Virginians and get supporters out to the polls.
In Virginia’s Tenth Congressional District, whose demographics foreshadow a strong showing by Rubio, Comstock is a strong ally to rally Republicans to the Senator’s cause.
Just over twenty-four hours from now, the results will be known. In the meantime, as Marco Rubio seeks to close the gap with frontrunner Donald Trump, he has in Congresswoman Barbara Comstock a powerful ally and supporter whose campaign apparatus will surely assist him in outperforming in Northern Virginia.
For Comstock, urging supporters to make that important, final push is critical.
As Comstock explained, “there are phone calls,” and, by all measures, her supporters are busy calling and emailing across the Tenth District on behalf of Marco Rubio.
