Rubio is now in second place in New Hampshire, according to a Real Clear Politics average of several polls.
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Trump did get in a shot at Cruz during a massive rally in Manchester Monday night.
If he’s basing his speculation on early polling, that’s a stretch. Ted Cruz at 14%, but significantly ahead of the fourth and fifth place candidates in the poll, Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 10% and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 7%.
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he does not have to win the New Hampshire primary vote to secure the nomination, apparently tamping down expectations despite holding a double-digit lead in that state’s polls.
Of course, there were plenty of Rubio supporters who were not deterred from supporting him by the debate performance.
Cruz won by more than 3 points and Clinton by a razor-thin margin in Iowa. And if he lost, he would be seriously under-performing.
“He kept saying the same thing over and over again”, said O’Brien, a 67-year-old from Manchester who is one of New Hampshire’s many independents. Without a strong showing here, all three will face intense pressure to end their bids. While he performed poorly in this week’s debate, there is so far scant evidence that he’s hemorrhaging support. Rival campaigns conceded privately in the days leading up to the debate he was pulling away from the governors. Asked about Rubio’s performance, McCarthy said it didn’t hurt him that much, and he wasn’t concerned by it, quipping, “I voted for Romney last time, so obviously I don’t mind robots”.
And just when he was getting criticized for being too scripted, robotic, and unspontaneous, Rubio did it again, while campaigning in New Hampshire.
Afterward, Trump supporter Brett Strawn said, “I love how honest he was and I loved the change he’s going to make and I think he’s a man of his word”.
There have been no higher stakes on a Republican debate stage in the 2016 campaign for president than there were Saturday night. He cited his victory in Iowa-beating back the ethanol lobby which fought him over his support for phasing out subsidies-as an example of his ability to take on special interests and cited that as a reason people in Washington say he’s unlikable. Now she says she’ll vote for Cruz. “And I’ll be just as effective against Hillary Clinton”. “But no, I’m voting for Cruz”. “Everybody said, ‘Oh, the temperament, ‘ because I talked about illegal immigration”. So did the debate.
“I thought he was flustered, but he did well”, said Jeremy Pollard, 36. Marco Rubio finished behind him in fifth.
“Not surprised; that’s who he is”, the New Jersey governor said Tuesday of the Rubio town hall moment Monday where the senator followed a sentence saying “we know how hard it is to instill our values in our kids, instead of the values they try to ram down our throats” with this similar sentence – “In the 21st Century it’s become harder than ever to instill in your children the values they teach in our homes and in our church, instead of the values they try to ram down our throats in the movies, in music, in popular culture”. Before he kicked off a rally in Nashua, protesters started chanting, “No record, no experience!”, echoing Christie’s line of questioning.
Recommended: How well do you know Marco Rubio? Rubio used the line two more times, drawing a reaction from the crowd.
Mr Rubio’s defense was that his and Obama’s world views are different, not that Mr Obama has simply led the country down the path it is on because of inexperience.
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“For a while, I didn’t want to show up in New Hampshire because I didn’t want any speculation about whether I was going to run or not”, he admitted.
