Rubio gasping

Rubio gasping after Super Tuesday

The candidate leading the establishment charge won just a single state on the biggest night of the contest so far.

By Anna Palmer

Donald Trump pummeled Sen. Marco Rubio on Super Tuesday, leaving the Florida Republican with a nearly impossible path to the GOP nomination.

Rubio won just a single state on the biggest night yet of the 2016 contest — bringing his overall win tally to one with Minnesota — and it’s still unclear whether he will climb over the 20 percent threshold in several of the primaries to secure enough delegates to make a credible case for staying in the race.

The results were particularly damning for Rubio’s argument that rivals Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich should drop out so that center-right conservatives can consolidate behind him. Trump taking six Super Tuesday states and Sen. Ted Cruz winning Texas and Oklahoma will push them well ahead of Rubio in the delegate count. As of 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, Trump led the delegate count with 274. Cruz had locked down 149 delegates and Rubio had 82 delegates.

The drubbing is already fueling an ever-expanding frenzy within a GOP establishment quickly running out of time to block Trump’s march to the nomination. Several prominent Republicans threw their support behind Rubio after Trump trounced the field in Nevada. Other operatives have been working behind-the-scenes to scale up the anti-Trump attacks. But none of that blunts Trump’s progress across areas that most GOP operatives thought would be more hospitable territory for Rubio or Cruz.

Rubio had been increasingly using heated language against Trump, viciously criticizing him on everything from failed business practices to the size of his hands. On the campaign trail, he repeatedly called Trump a "con artist" and pledged to fight Trump all the way to the Republican National Convention.

But all for naught, at least so far.

On Tuesday evening, Rubio told several thousand supporters in Miami that he is "so excited about what lies ahead for our campaign."

Rubio chose to spend Super Tuesday in his home county of Miami-Dade for one overriding reason: He needs to. It’s Florida’s most-populous county, with the largest number of Republicans, about 350,000 — more than 73 percent of whom are Hispanic, like Rubio.

Rubio is trailing Trump in the polls in Florida, and his backers say they know he needs to have a large Miami-Dade turnout to have a shot at winning the state on March 15.

Rubio made little mention of his poor showing Super Tuesday, but he did tacitly acknowledge he wasn’t in the best position.

“The pundits say we’re underdogs. I’ll accept that. We’ve all been underdogs. This is a community of underdogs,” he said, the cheers of thousands ringing off the metal rafters of the equestrian center at Tropical Park in Miami. “This is a state of underdogs. This is a country of underdogs. But we will win.”

Rubio later said he would have won the Virginia primary in a head-to-head match against Trump. Appearing on Fox News, Rubio said he had closed in on Trump in Virginia in recent days, and that if he "didn’t have to share the ballot with two or three other people, I would have won.”

Rubio wasn't the only candidate calling for a consolidation of the race. Cruz also encouraged the other Republican candidates to unite behind him to beat Trump after he won Texas and Oklahoma.

Rubio and his advisers have described an ugly, drawn-out path to the Republican nomination. Their strategy relies on picking off enough delegates to hold Trump below the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the nomination on the first ballot at the convention.

And while Rubio’s team tried to raise expectations for Cruz, after Tuesday, Cruz remains the only 2016 contender who has beaten Trump — first in Iowa and now in Texas and Oklahoma.

Rubio's team acknowledges privately that "winning a state outright would be nice in that it would shut the pundits up." But they believe, even if they're third in the delegate count coming out of Super Tuesday, they have more of a path than Cruz going forward because the delegates up for grabs will be in Northern and Western states that are more favorable to them.

And Rubio supporters insist Republicans are still a long way from picking their nominee.

“There’s a long way to go in the process,” said former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, who is backing Rubio. “This is no doubt who the front-runner is, but he keeps making it harder and harder — impossible for Republicans to say that’s the guy who we want as our nominee.”

Minnesota was one of the long-shot states that Rubio had focused on to win. He flew Tuesday to a Minneapolis-area suburb for a rally.

Virginia Republican Rep. Scott Rigell, who has been a loud Trump critic, agreed that the door is not closed for Rubio.

“No question,” Rigell said, regarding whether Rubio should remain in the race. “I am an enthusiastic and really unapologetic endorser of Marco. I’m proud of him. I’m proud to stand with him. He came to Virginia Beach and he said, ‘I’m going to love those that don’t vote for me and I’m going to reach out to those that didn’t support me … that’s how I serve Virginia too.”

Rubio backers had hoped that he would perform better than expected in states like Arkansas and Georgia, citing large rallies in the lead-up to Super Tuesday.

And they still think that Trump's handling of the Ku Klux Klan issue could hurt him in the upcoming contests.

One Rubio insider said that Trump's delay in disavowing the KKK is going to "lead people to a conclusion that this guy is going to destroy the party."

Rubio could also be aided by a big endorsement. Jeb Bush has continued to stay on the sidelines, but he certainly would be helpful in Florida, which Rubio needs to win on March 15. Rubio’s campaign chief Terry Sullivan told donors Tuesday that he wasn’t sure whether Bush would endorse before the Florida primary, but he still believes Rubio will win there.

Mitt Romney, who in recent weeks has gone after Trump over not producing his tax returns and for his KKK comments, has also not endorsed any candidates. It’s unclear whether Romney’s endorsement would have any impact in slowing Trump down.