JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- After President Barack Obama makes his case for the State of the Union, it will be the Republican Party's turn to offer a rebuttal.
The man they chose for the job is Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
The 41 year-old son of Cuban immigrants is without a doubt a rising star in the Republican Party and he's widely considered to be their strongest contender in 2016.
Lenny Curry, Republican Party of Florida Chairman, will be watching both the president's speech and Rubio's response from Tallahassee.
"Marco is going to talk about free enterprise, how that affects our lives and how we can move from poverty to the middle class and so forth," said Curry.
Rubio is set to deliver a live response from the speaker's conference room in Washington.
He will also prerecord the same speech in Spanish. A move that emphasizes the importance of the Hispanic voting block.
"A lot of folks have asked if he's going to talk about immigration and about any number of these hot-button issues and he certainly may touch on that but he'll touch on that as it relates to opportunity and job creation," said Curry.
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll tells Action News she too is looking forward to the senator's speech.
"I'm proud of Marco. Marco is able to articulate to everyone exactly what the republican positions are," said Carroll.
Those position are small government and free enterprise, according to Curry, they're the very positions that allowed Senator Rubio's family to reach the American dream.
"He represents what free enterprise and small effective government can apply to an individual's lives and rise them up out of the middle class and on to bigger and better things it's what Marco's family has done," said Curry.
The Clay County Republican Party will be hosting a watch party beginning at 9 p.m. Clay County was the first to host then-Senate Candidate Rubio at the Flag Day dinner.
"We always feel honored that his first official candidate speech was at our fundraiser," said Leslie Dougher, Chair for the Clay County Republican Party.
