If any Democrat could fend off accusations of being anti-police, it should be Val Demings.
Before seeking office in 2012, the Florida congresswoman spent 27 years as an officer with the Orlando Police Department, including four as the city’s first female police chief. In addition to her own nearly three decades of service, she is married to a longtime cop: Her husband, Jerry Demings, has served as chief of the Orlando Police Department as well as sheriff of Orange County, Fla.
Yet her opponent, incumbent Republican Sen. Mario Rubio, has repeatedly attacked her record. His first TV ad in July, featured uniformed law enforcement officials saying Demings may have once been a cop but had turned “her back on law enforcement” and had “called abolishing the police ‘thoughtful’.” (PolitiFact found that the ad took Demings “out of context — undermining her background in law enforcement.”)
