TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy easily won their Florida primaries Tuesday, setting up a November showdown as each party grapples for a majority in the Senate.
In other Florida races, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown lost a primary as she faces felony fraud charges, and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who recently resigned as Democratic National Committee chairman, won her primary.
Voters also took to the primary polls in Arizona, where U.S. Sen. John McCain easily defeated Kelli Ward, a former state senator. In the campaign, Ward had attacked McCain as too willing to compromise with Democrats but struggled to raise the money and amass the widespread support needed for a serious challenge to the six-term incumbent.
McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee and Armed Services Committee chairman, heads to the general election in a bid for a seventh term in the Senate.
Rubio's and Murphy's victory speeches set the tone for the Senate race.
"Marco Rubio is the worst of Washington because he puts himself first every time. He gave up on his job. He gave up on Florida. He earned the worst voting record for any Florida senator in 50 years," Murphy said shortly after polls closed.
Rubio spoke about an hour later and said Murphy has lied about his education and his career and is only successful because of his wealthy father.
"How can someone with that kind of record think he can be elected to the U.S. Senate? The answer is he has a sense of entitlement, because when everything you've ever had in your life is given to you, you think you deserve it all," Rubio said.
Rubio had declared during his failed presidential campaign that he would not run again for Senate. But he nearly cleared what had been a crowded GOP field with his last-minute turnabout.
Wasserman Schultz easily beat Tim Canova, a Bernie Sanders-backed law professor who was able to raise more than $3 million in a primary colored by leaked emails revealing that DNC officials had worked against Sanders to favor Hillary Clinton in the presidential race.
Brown lost to longtime state lawmaker Al Lawson, who has previously run for Congress.
Democrats hope to gain seats in Florida's heavily Republican U.S. House delegation after court-mandated redistricting chipped away the advantages of some incumbents.
Florida had to rip up and redraw its congressional maps after they were found to violate the state constitution's provision requiring compact districts that don't favor incumbents or political parties. That spurred one of the state's most heavily contested congressional election years.
Republicans now outnumber Democrats 17-10 in the state's congressional delegation. If Democrats sweep all four seats seen as competitive in November, that Republican advantage would be reduced to 14-13.
Information for this article was contributed by Tamara Lush and Mike Schneider of The Associated Press and by Mike DeBonis of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/31/2016