Since announcing his presidential bid in mid-April, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has been absent from the Senate more often than any other senators running for the White House.
Rubio has only voted 64 percent of the time, missing more than a third of votes on the Senate floor, or 42 votes in total, according to Politico.
Rubio skipped votes on a number of high profile issues involving national security, trade, energy and education policy. He also missed private hearings on the Iran talks, a public forum on China and a private briefing on the Islamic State group. Politico said that Rubio has not missed any votes where his vote would have changed the outcome though.
"It's not unusual for presidential candidates to miss Senate votes," Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told Politico. "Sen. Rubio remains fully engaged in the issues important to Florida and helping Floridians, and as he travels the country to talk about his agenda to help the middle class, there will be no doubt where he stands on any important issues before the Senate."
In the same period, presidential contender Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., missed 37 votes, with a 68 percent attendance rate, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, missed 33 votes, attending 72 percent of the time.
At the other end of the Republican spectrum is Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who only missed two votes, according to Politico.
Democratic presidential contender and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders missed seven votes since mid-April.
Previous senators who were running for president also had trouble making votes. In 2007, Sen. Hillary Clinton only made 77 percent of votes, Barack Obama only showed up 62 percent of the time and John McCain only 44 percent of the time.
Politico noted: "The missed votes underscore the challenges senators face when running for president. They must project leadership and show that they take their jobs seriously. Yet, the task of campaigning across the country and raising tens of millions of dollars often means they skip out on their day job, even when Congress is debating weighty global and domestic issues."
