The campaign of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton is eyeing surging GOP primary contender Sen. Marco Rubio — and is reportedly stepping up attacks aimed at him.
According to The Hill, the Clinton-aligned Priorities USA super PAC has sent out a dozen emails or ads targeting Rubio in the last two weeks, including blasts
focusing on his finances as a state senator in Florida and his record as a state lawmaker.
The Hill notes the attacks are a shift from previous months, when the focus was trained on former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
The attacks seem to indicate that Clinton and her supporters see Rubio as likely to win the GOP nomination, a Democratic strategist tells The Hill.
"It's really a look at who's realistic," the strategist says.
One of the three attack ads featured on the home page of the super PAC’s YouTube channel is titled
"Marco Rubio, Mansplainer" — and no other Republican is the sole focus of an entire ad on the Priorities channel, The Hill reports.
The other two attack ads on the main page describe how several of the Republican candidates — including Rubio, Bush and retired pediatric surgeon Ben Carson — are "wrong" for senior citizens and for ending gun violence.
"It has to do with Jeb Bush's sinking poll numbers more than anything," Eric Jotkoff, a Democratic strategist and former Florida Democratic Party staffer who served as an aide on the 2008 Clinton campaign, tells The Hill.
But the Rubio obsession isn't just with the Clinton campaign.
On Monday, EMILY's List, an influential group that backs female candidates and has endorsed Clinton, sent an email describing Rubio as the "new Scott Walker," The Hill reports.
"We already knew that all Marco Rubio's policy agenda consists of is pursuing failed, conservative policies that hurt women and families," Marcy Stech, communications director for the group, wrote in an email to reporters, The Hill reports. "Now he's apparently branched out to pursuing endorsements from failed, conservative candidates as well."
Earlier in the day, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) sent three separate emails targeting Rubio, The Hill reports.
A DNC official tells The Hill that there's no hands-off policy on other GOP candidates, but that Rubio is "obviously worth looking at."
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