Patrick Murphy (politician, 1983)

Patrick Murphy (2013)

Patrick Erin Murphy (born March 30, 1983 in Miami , Florida ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . From 2013 to 2017 he represented the state of Florida in the United States House of Representatives . In the 2016 election to the US Senate , he stood for his party, but was defeated by the mandate holder Marco Rubio . Since he had not run for the House of Representatives at the same time, he resigned from Congress on January 3, 2017.

Career

Patrick Murphy attended the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey until 2002 . He then studied bookkeeping and accounting at the University of Miami until 2006 . At the time, he came into conflict with the law because of drunk driving and a false driver's license. After completing his studies, he first worked as a sworn accountant for several companies. He then became vice president of the family-owned construction company. During the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 , he worked there for a few months to help clean up the spilled oil. Politically, he initially joined the Republican Party . In 2011 he joined the Democrats . Murphy, who had supported Mitt Romney before the 2008 presidential election , cited his frustration with the tea party movement within Republicans and the aggressive rhetoric of their representatives like Allen West as the reason .

In the 2012 election to the United States House of Representatives , Murphy was elected to the House of Representatives in Washington, DC after a costly and tough campaign in Florida's 18th  Congressional District, where he succeeded Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on January 3, 2013 , who moved to the newly created 26th District. Murphy's Republican opponent Allen West , who until then had represented Florida’s 22nd district in Congress, appealed against the election result and pushed through a recount of the votes. After this was 50.4% against 49.6% in Murphy's favor, West admitted his defeat on November 20, 2012. Murphy was the youngest MP in the 113th Congress , kept a low profile and advocated non-partisan and local political issues. Before the 2014 election, as a newcomer to a predominantly Republican constituency, he was considered one of the most vulnerable MPs in his party, but managed to win re-election against the almost unknown Republican challenger Carl Domino with almost 60 percent of the vote and broad support from voters in favor of the Republicans were registered. Murphy served on the Finance and Intelligence Committee .

In March 2015, Murphy announced that he would run for the seat of the Republican Marco Rubio in the 2016 US Senate election . At the end of August 2016, he clearly prevailed in the Democratic primary against Alan Grayson and was thus nominated for his party. In the actual election, he then met Rubio, who had meanwhile lost his party's primary election for the 2016 presidential nomination , and lost 44 to 52 percent of the vote. Since Murphy had no longer run for the House of Representatives because of his Senate candidacy, he resigned from Congress on January 3, 2017. He was succeeded by the Republican Brian Mast .

Murphy retired from politics to the private sector after the 2016 defeat, leaving open a possible return. He is considered a possible candidate for Florida governorship in the November 2018 election after Rick Scott can no longer run due to term limits. A renewed application for his previous seat in the House of Representatives, however, is considered unlikely.

Positions

Murphy is seen as a centrist democrat who is liberal on sociopolitical issues such as abortion ( pro-choice ) and equality for homosexuals, but restrictive on fiscal issues. He deviates from the party line more often; He supported the Republicans in the House of Representatives in a legislative proposal to oblige the President to balance the budget within ten years and voted as one of 19 of his parliamentary group in favor of the construction of the ecologically controversial Keystone XL pipeline . In 2014, he was also one of the seven members of his party’s Congress to approve the establishment of a committee of inquiry into the behavior of the Obama administration in the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi, Libya .

Web links

• Patrick Murphy in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Dem Candidate Murphy: Drunk and Disorderly Incident at 19 'Biggest Mistake of My Life'. In: The Palm Beach Post , June 15, 2012.
2. ↑ George Bennett: Both sides making West's rhetoric an issue in closely divided District 18. In: Palm Beach Post , September 22, 2012 (English).
3. ^ Allen West Concedes to Patrick Murphy. In: Politico , November 20, 2012.
4. ^ Scott Bland: In a Great Year and District for the GOP, This Democrat Won Big Anyway. ( Memento of the original from November 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: National Journal , November 11, 2014. 
5. ↑ Abby Livingston: DCCC Announces 26 Members on Frontline Incumbent Retention Program. In: Rollcall , March 5, 2013.
6. ↑ George Bennett: Wave-defying Democrat Murphy for Senate in 2016? Pollster Says 'Kind of Absurd, But ...' In: The Palm Beach Post , Nov. 8, 2014.
7. ↑ Alex Leary: Rep. Patrick Murphy Announces He's Running for Senate. ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Tampa Bay Times , March 23, 2015. 
8. ↑ George Bennett: Patrick Murphy talks Trump, Hillary and a political future - or not. In: Palm Beach Post , December 6, 2016 (English).
9. ↑ Kevin Derby: Florida Voters Undecided on Next Governor But Name ID Helps Mike Huckabee, Patrick Murphy. In: Sunshine State News , March 21, 2017 (English); Kevin Derby: Democrats Shouldn't Count on Winning Congressional Seats in Florida Quite Yet. In: Sunshine State News , May 13, 2017 (English).
10. ↑ Alex Leary: In swing district, Rep. Patrick Murphy has to tread carefully. In: Tampa Bay Times , July 4, 2013.
11. ↑ Cristina Marcos: Seven Dems vote to create Benghazi panel. In: The Hill , May 8, 2014 (English).