Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is smack in the middle of his opponents’ crosshairs going into Super Tuesday.
Both Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) publicly called on the Florida senator to drop out of the 2016 race if he underperforms in Tuesday’s multi-state primary contest.
Trump, whose name-calling schoolyard spat with Rubio has escalated since a particularly heated showdown at last week’s GOP debate, fired first.
“I think he has to get out,” the real estate mogul said in a phone interview with “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning. “You know, he hasn’t won anything, and Ted Cruz very rightly points out, you know, Marco has not won.”
Rubio has yet to pull off a win in a single early voting state. Cruz came in first in the Iowa caucuses, while Trump took huge leads in the contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada.
In a Tuesday radio interview, Cruz told conservative host Mike Gallagher that his fellow senator’s losing streak was likely to continue.
“In all likelihood today, he is not anticipating winning any states,” Cruz told Gallagher, as quoted by Politico. “In all likelihood, he will lose every single Super Tuesday state, and even his home state of Florida.”
“And tomorrow morning, if a candidate is sitting there having won zero states, if a candidate is sitting there with very, very few delegates, I do think what today will do is help narrow the field,” Cruz continued. “We need to get to a one-on-one battle with Donald Trump.”
A Quinnipiac poll released last week found Trump leading Rubio by 16 points in the Sunshine State.
Cruz’s and Trump’s line of attack marks a rare moment of unity for two candidates who have been at each other’s throats for weeks, each trying to paint himself as the only Republican capable of beating Hillary Clinton in a general election contest.
Rubio has vowed to remain in the race “as long as it takes” to defeat Trump, and recently brushed aside his failure to win any primaries to date.
“You don’t win the nomination by how many states you win,” Rubio said last week on Fox News.
The good news for Rubio is that he can win even if he doesn’t show up. Of course he can also lose.
How can he “underperform” when he’s not leading in a single state?
Maybe it is a double-negative thing… if you “underperform” when you lose states, that means you are really “winning”