Connie Mack IV ended a six-day, 17-city bus tour Tuesday, making stops with Sen. John McCain in military-heavy towns of Jacksonville, Pensacola, and Tampa.

Speaking to veterans at the American Legion Post in Jacksonville on Tuesday, McCain said he and Mack “will be working very closely together, particularly on defense issues.”

In Tampa, McCain said he was encouraged by the enthusiasm for Mack on the trail. “I’ve been around enough campaigns — winning and losing — to know that this enthusiasm that we’re showing right now, it convinces me that Connie Mack will be the next senator from the state of Florida,” said McCain.

Last week, Mack’s campaign kicked off the second-leg of his ‘Freedom Tour’ which kicked-off after Wednesday’s Senate debate.

At his campaign stops on Sunday, Mack brought along former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to help him make his case. The former mayor said electing Mack will ensure Mitt Romney has a Republican Senate, “to make the changes that are necessary,”

“With Connie Mack, we’ll have a new majority leader, we will have a new way of approaching the Senate, We’ll have a budget from the U.S. Senate, we’ll end Obamacare, we’ll start reducing the deficit,” said Giuliani in Port. St. Lucie.

In Tradition on Sunday, Giuliani said Florida “saved us from Al Gore” winning the White House in 2000 and urged voters at a rally to “save us again” by supporting Mack.

Mack also appeared with his mother Priscilla and his father, former Congressman and Senator Connie Mack III. 

Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Nelson continues his own statewide campaign tour today with an appearance at Stetson University in DeLand this afternoon.

Nelson’s “Florida First” tour has brought him to traditionally GOP strongholds across northern and central Florida as he makes his case to both Democratic and Republican voters.

 “I’ve always gotten a healthy slice of Republicans that look at me as ‘me,’” Nelson said.

On Tuesday, the senator visited a cemetery near the small Panhandle town of Chipley, where five generations of Nelsons are buried.

Tags | Al Gore, Bill Nelson, Connie Mack, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani