Ted Cruz speaks with an audience member during a campaign rally in Miami, Fla., March 9. | AP Photo Cruz makes pass at Rubio's Miami base Careful not to insult his rival, the Texan instead offers a viability argument.

MIAMI — Ted Cruz, with a brief spurt of Spanish, called up his Cuban roots on Wednesday to make a play for Miami’s Hispanic Republicans – and put another nail in Marco Rubio’s campaign coffin.

“Y’all know how to make a Cuban feel welcome,” Cruz twanged at Miami Dade College, where he spoke to reporters and potential supporters steps from where Rubio announced his 2016 bid 11 months ago.


With cameras rolling, Cruz attempted to remind anyone watching that the Florida senator isn’t the only candidate with ties to the Latin community.

“For me, when my dad came in 1957, it was the state of Florida on which my father first set foot when he got off a ferry boat in Key West, Fla.,” Cruz said, when asked whether he could capture more of the Hispanic vote than Rubio.

“He had left his mom and dad, my abuelo and abuela, back in Cuba. He’d left his kid sister back in Cuba, he didn’t know if he’d ever see them again, but at 18 he landed in America, free.”

Cruz is moving aggressively in Rubio’s backyard, eager to force his wounded rival from the race when Florida votes on Tuesday, if not before. Cruz has virtually no shot of winning Florida but that’s not his play: Cruz wants to ensure Rubio doesn’t close the distance with Donald Trump for first so that he captures zero delegates in what is a must-win state for the Floridian.

Manny Roman, one of Cruz’s Florida surrogates, introduced Cruz as “the first Hispanic President of the United States” and called on Rubio to quit after underperforming already low expectations by failing to secure any delegates in Mississippi, Michigan, and Idaho on Tuesday.

While Cruz criticized an immigration proposal Rubio helped draft, he was careful to not insult his rival on turf that remains not just friendly but adoring of their senator--as he holds out hope that some Rubio supporters will switch over to his team.

“Let me take a minute to sing Marco’s praises,” he said in the press conference. “Marco is a colleague of mine, a very, very talented leader, an incredible communicator. What does it say about our nation, that the sons of two Cuban immigrants who came penniless to this country, one a bartender and a maid, and the other, his dad, a dishwasher, that right now their sons would be among the handful still running for President? It takes your breath away, the opportunity this nation offers.”

But on a carefully crafted political note, Cruz urged Rubio’s supporters, as well as those backing John Kasich, former supporters of Jeb Bush and those who previously supported other candidates in the race to come behind him, arguing that he is the only one who can compete against Trump.

“Last night…made abundantly clear, in the battle for delegates, in the path for 1,237, only two candidates in this race have any plausible path to getting them. Right now, Donald Trump is 100 delegates ahead of us,” he said on the stump, to boos. “But I’ll tell you, the momentum is with us. Conservatives are uniting with us, coming together with us. If this race continues and continues to narrow into a clear two-man race, [in a] head-to-head, Donald Trump loses.”

Cruz's efforts to unite the conservative Hispanic community behind his campaign, however, only went so far on Wednesday.

When a reporter asked, after the press conference wrapped up, whether Cruz wanted to relay a message in Spanish, the Texas senator continued walking.