Rubio acknowledges 'people are struggling' economically after GOP midterm losses as Florida Republicans hold on narrowly

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the former Florida senator from Miami, acknowledged Friday that Americans are hurting financially, telling a conservative audience in Washington that "people are struggling" in a speech 10 days after Republicans suffered sweeping losses in the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

"I think we have to recognize that people are struggling. There's no doubt about it," Rubio said in a keynote address to the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention, according to The Associated Press. The remarks touched the issue voters cited most as they handed Democrats control of Congress: the cost of living. In Florida, where Republicans held every statewide office but by narrower margins than in recent cycles, the same pressures from gas prices to home insurance shaped the campaign.

What Rubio said

Rubio set aside a measure that President Donald Trump often cites as evidence the economy is strong. "The health of our economy has nothing to do with the stock market," Rubio said. He said the real measure is whether families have enough money to afford the things they need.

He conceded that addressing the problem is politically hard, saying it is "not popular" to take on and can cause economic pain in the short term. Prosperity, he argued, is "not self-perpetuating" and requires work over years and decades, not single election cycles. He also warned of what he called a "legitimate fear" that the current generation will be the first to leave the next one worse off, which he described as un-American.

Rubio defended the war with Iran as necessary to keep the Islamic Republic from obtaining a nuclear weapon, while acknowledging that the unpopular conflict has driven up gasoline prices and related costs. He said further U.S. military action is unnecessary because economic pressure has weakened Iran.

A speech with 2028 overtones

The AP noted that the address had the overtones of a campaign speech. Rubio, who represented Florida in the U.S. Senate from 2011 until joining the Trump administration in 2025, has consistently declined to say whether he will run for president in 2028, a race that could pit him against Vice President JD Vance. Last month, he gave a wide-ranging speech in Greece on Western values that was also seen as reflecting his political ambitions.

Much of Friday's speech focused on foreign policy. Rubio defended the administration's deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in Latin America, the January capture of then-Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the administration's strict immigration policies, all issues with strong resonance in South Florida. He accused other countries and international organizations of invoking international law to block U.S. action, criticizing the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and what he called the "global elite." He accused critics of demanding that nations "surrender control of their borders" while claiming to oppose imperialism.

The national results

Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate on Nov. 3. Voters angry over higher costs blamed Trump for his tariffs, the war in Iran and his unfulfilled promise to lower prices, the AP reported. Democrats flipped Senate seats in several states that had leaned Republican and gained well beyond the 218 seats needed for a House majority, according to election tallies. Democrats take control of Congress in January.

Gov. Ron DeSantis described the national outcome the day after the election as "the political equivalent of a meteor strike" that hit Republicans across the country, WLRN reported. He also argued Democrats did not earn a mandate and described Florida as a firewall against the Democratic wave.

How Florida voted

Florida bucked the national trend at the top of the ticket, but not by much. Republican Byron Donalds was elected governor over Democrat David Jolly, Sen. Ashley Moody, appointed in 2025 to the Senate seat Rubio vacated, won election over Democrat Angie Nixon, and Attorney General James Uthmeier was reelected. WLRN reported that Republicans won the governor's, U.S. Senate and Cabinet races by about 3 percentage points or less.

Under new congressional maps that redrew 20 of the state's 28 districts, Florida's U.S. House delegation appeared set to remain at 20 Republicans and eight Democrats, the same split as before the election, according to WUSF. Democrats held all four seats the new map had appeared to put at risk, and several Republican incumbents, including Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in Miami-Dade, won by less than a percentage point.

Lower on the ballot, Republicans lost the two-thirds supermajority they had held in the Florida House, a margin they had held since 2022. Without it, they lack the votes to act alone on matters such as overriding a governor's veto. Voters also approved Amendment 3, which raises the homestead property tax exemption to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, a measure pitched as relief for homeowners.

Affordability in Florida

The economic pressures Rubio described are familiar to Floridians. Gas prices spiked this year as the Iran war rattled oil markets; AAA reported that Florida's average reached a 2026 high of $4.52 a gallon on May 7 and peaked again above $4.40 in late September. Prices have since eased, to an average of $3.80 on Nov. 8, about 22 cents below the national average.

Housing costs weigh heavily too. Florida homeowners pay some of the highest insurance premiums in the country, an average of $8,292 a year according to a study by the insurance comparison site Insurify. In that survey, 65% of Florida respondents said rising insurance costs would make them more likely to vote in the midterms, and 49% of homeowners reported that their premiums had increased in the past 12 months. WUSF reported that Democratic gains in targeted Florida congressional races were attributed in part to voter dissatisfaction with Trump amid high gas and grocery prices.

What's next

Rubio's remarks offered an early sign of how Republicans with national ambitions may talk about the economy after the midterms, acknowledging voters' frustration while defending the administration's record. With Democrats taking over Congress in January and Donalds succeeding DeSantis in Tallahassee, affordability is likely to remain the central issue in both Washington and Florida heading into 2027 and the 2028 presidential race.