Marco Rubio has lost ground with Sunshine State voters because he "betrayed the people of Florida," tea party activist Dan Ray said Tuesday.
"He's got the worst attendance record in the Senate in many, many years," Ray, a founding member of the Tea Party group in The Villages,
told Brooke Baldwin on CNN.
Rubio campaigned earlier this week in the large retirement community in central Florida.
"He really betrayed the people, many of us, across the state who worked diligently in 2010 to get him elected in the first place," Ray said, charging the junior senator with joining with Senate Democrats on the Gang of Eight immigration legislation in 2013.
"We gave Marco some chances," Ray said. "He had a great potential to be a good senator and he blew it. I don't know what he got kind of mesmerized by Washington and the power maybe went to his head — I don't know; you have to ask him that — but he betrayed the grass-roots people that really put him into office in the first place."
Ray said he backed Trump because of his anti-immigration stance — not his fiery campaign rhetoric — and slammed rival Ted Cruz because of his Canadian birthplace.
"I really don't have anything to forgive him for," he said in response to a question about Trump's remarks. "I'm not his judge.
"He's not a perfect man. None of us are perfect. But you know what, he loves America. He's fighting for us to remain a sovereign nation.
"If we don't get control of our borders, if we don't restore our sovereignty at the border and stop the influx of illegal aliens — when the bathtub's always overflowing, you've got to turn off the water before you can clean up the mess.
"We have to protect our sovereignty," Ray said. "We don't want to be part of the new world order."