Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida woke up Wednesday morning having won just one of the first 15 states in the 2016 GOP presidential primary contest, but said Super Tuesday was never supposed to be a great success for him.
“Last night was not supposed to be my night,” Mr. Rubio said Wednesday on Fox News. “I never said Super Tuesday was going to be our big night. We wanted to do well; we wanted to pick up a lot of delegates.”
“But we understood that other campaigns have spent a lot more time and money in some of these states, and I think that was reflected in Georgia — a state where Ted Cruz badly outspent us, we beat Ted Cruz last night,” he said.
Mr. Rubio picked up his first and only win of the race in the Minnesota caucuses, but he is well back of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who won seven states on Tuesday, and is also behind Mr. Cruz, who won three states.
“The bottom line from last night is it was supposed to be Ted Cruz’s night. It was not,” Mr. Rubio said. “Donald Trump — 65 percent of the people who voted, voted against him and that’s the problem he has. He can never bring this party together. There will never be a time [when] our supporters are asking us to make way for Donald Trump.”
Mr. Rubio said he thinks the composition of states moving forward looks more like Virginia, where he lost by about 3 points to Mr. Trump and carried some of the Washington, D.C., and Richmond-area suburbs. He also said he plans to carry his home state of Florida on March 15.
“It’s going to be close, there’s no doubt about it, but we know how to win in Florida and we will, especially once Donald Trump is exposed for what he’s doing now,” he said. “As he’s being exposed, his numbers are coming down. Virginia’s a good example.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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