Although it's still very early in the 2016 presidential race, things are already heating up in the Republican Party.

According to a new report by Politico, Sen. Marco Rubio's longtime friend and 2010 Senate campaign manager is cutting his political ties with the young presidential hopeful to work for potential presidential candidate Jeb Bush.

Inside sources say that Rubio's former aide, Jose Mallea, will start working as a Hispanic-outreach adviser for Bush, one of Rubio's likely 2016 rivals.

This shows that the former Florida governor is serious about winning over Latino voters and that Florida Republicans have a deep loyalty for Bush and his family. A longtime Bush ally, Mallea served on President George W. Bush's administration from 2001 to 2005 in various positions.

Mallea planned to resign on Friday from his current position as the national strategic director for the LIBRE Initiative, a Latino-outreach organization that is affiliated with the billionaire Koch brothers.

"Jose has a good body of experience from working at the White House to where he is today - he understands Hispanic voters, their behaviors and their beliefs," said David Custin, a Florida political consultant and lobbyist from Miami-Dade. "He's really competent," Custin said before joking, "but he ain't as good as me."

Custin added that voters should expect to see more flip-flopping between political aides during the 2016 race.

"You're going to see a lot of this: guys going to work for Bush who worked for Marco or are even his friends. But Jose is a Jeb guy first, politically," Custin said. "This race between Jeb and Marco is amicable right now -- and we'll see how long that lasts -- but it will filter out who's really a Marco person and who wasn't really a part of Jeb World. It's going to be very transparent."

In another effort to win over Latino voters, Bush addressed a university in Puerto Rico last Tuesday, reiterating his support for Puerto Rico statehood while challenging his colleagues in the Republican Party to make stronger outreach efforts to the Hispanic community.