Ted Cruz's campaign says he is the only non-Trump candidate still with a path to the nomination. | AP Photo Cruz super PAC aims to take out Rubio in Florida

One of Ted Cruz’s super PACs says it is aiming to take out Marco Rubio in his home state of Florida.

And the super PAC has prepared an array of new attack ads hitting Rubio — on sugar subsidies, on his tax plan, on amnesty and on national defense — with plans to air them in the Sunshine State.


“We had so much fun winning Sen. Cruz’s home state by 17 points, we thought why not repeat that in Sen. Rubio’s home state?” said Kellyanne Conway, the Republican strategist who heads Keep the Promise I, which created the ads. The group is funded mostly by $11 million from hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer, and had $2.75 million in the bank at the end of January.

The spots, which are 30 seconds long, were posted late Sunday to the YouTube channel of Keep The Promise I, one of the main pro-Cruz super PACs.

“They’ll be on the air, including if not especially in FL,” Conway said in an email.

The ads are especially notable because on the trail Cruz and Rubio have struck a bit of a truce, even as Cruz has tried to nudge Rubio out of the race. At last week’s debate in Detroit, the two senators refrained from jabbing each other and instead hit front-runner Donald Trump in unison.

Some Republican strategists who believe that the only way to stop Trump is through a contested convention have argued that Cruz, Rubio and John Kasich should work together in a delegate-denial strategy. That would involve Cruz essentially ceding Florida and its 99, winner-take-all delegates to Rubio. Cruz has publicly rebuked that notion, and his campaign says he is the only non-Trump candidate still with a path to the nomination.

Cruz’s campaign internally has considered making a Florida swing this week around Thursday’s debate in Miami but has not publicly announced plans to campaign there ahead of the March 15 election.

Conway did not say how much her group would invest in the expensive Florida airwaves but said, “Rubio is playing catch-up in a state he’s barely visited, and where Rubio as the tea party insurgent of 2010 has been replaced by amnesty-backing, establishment-blessed Rubio of 2016. That dog won’t hunt.”





The super PAC’s anti-Rubio sugar-subsidies ad is particularly hard-hitting. It accuses Rubio of “making it snow for Big Sugar in Washington” and calls Rubio’s support for subsidies while receiving contributions from the sugar industry “pay to play corporate cronyism.”

“Marco Rubio — the king of corporate welfare,” the narrator intones.

Another ad hits Rubio, as Cruz has in past debates, for his support of the “Gang of Eight” immigration legislation that included a path to legalization for those in the United States illegally.

A third ad hits Rubio on national defense and his Senate attendance, saying he skipped “18 defense votes.” It includes a past clip of Rubio saying skipping a vote is the equivalent of a “no” vote and then asks, "So if not voting is voting against it, was Rubio voting against defense spending and fighting ISIS?"

"Marco Rubio: Absent on national defense,” the ad ends.

In response, Rubio's campaign said voters in Florida believe Rubio is the best bet against Hillary Clinton.

"Considering Sen. Cruz's weak record on defense, tax plan that will lead to higher prices for seniors, and political rise fueled by undisclosed corporate loans, these ads are the gold standard of hypocrisy. Floridians know Marco is the only candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton and usher in a new American century with a stronger economy and national defense," said Joe Pounder, a Rubio spokesman.

