Marco Rubio’s Senate Voting Record ‘Much Worse’ Than Other Senators, Says Vote-Tracking Site

GOP presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) claims to have “close to a 90 percent attendance record in the Senate.”

Rubio told reporters in Iowa that he had close to a 90 percent attendance record in the Senate, as he was defending against a criticism by fellow GOP presidential candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for not showing up to vote against the $1.1 trillion 2016 Omnibus spending bill last month.

But according to government data collected by GovTrack.US, which tracks senators’ attendance records, “From Jan. 2011 to Dec. 2015, Rubio missed 197 of 1,482 roll call votes, which is 13.3%.”

“This is much worse than the median of 1.7% among the lifetime records of senators currently serving,” says GovTrack, which is run by Civic Impulse, LLC.

From the data, it appears Rubio’s attendance record is closer to 86.7 percent, not 90 percent.

In addition, throughout this year, Rubio missed many votes as he ramped up his presidential campaign. For example, in the Spring of 2015 Rubio missed 32.9 percent of votes. Additionally, during this Summer he missed 53.8 percent, and throughout the Fall he missed 58.2 percent.

Rubio’s campaign did not provide an explanation about why he is claiming to have close to a 90 percent attendance record in the Senate.