After spending most of 2015 bragging about his thriftiness when it came to flying commercial and coach, Marco Rubio quietly has been using a private jet almost exclusively for his campaign travel for nearly two months and plans to continue to do so through the primaries.

The jet-setting represents a dramatic about-face for the Rubio campaign. As recently as September, Rubio campaign manager Terry Sullivan bragged that “Marco flies 95 percent commercial, always coach.”


“We just booked a Frontier Airlines flight for him today, which is a special kind of hell for anybody. But we do it because we gotta — we’re gonna put the resources where it matters,” Sullivan said then.

In mid-October, only weeks before the campaign would be using a private plane nearly full time, the campaign was still touting its cost-cutting commercial ways as it released its quarterly financial figures, drawing an implicit contrast with Jeb Bush, who had spent nearly $1 million on chartered flights that quarter.

“Rather than relying on charter flights on private jets, Marco and the team flies commercial,” the Rubio campaign said then. “If it’s a flight that gets us where we need to go, when we need to get there, we take it.”

Those days are long over, according to travel records and people familiar with the Rubio campaign’s plans. Rubio has traveled overwhelmingly by chartered jet since the Republican debate held in Milwaukee in mid-November.

Now, Rubio is spending an estimated tens of thousands of dollars every day to keep a Cessna Citation Excel plane by his side. The jet can comfortably sit a half-dozen passengers, with room for a couple more to squeeze on, if needed.

Without a single early-voting state to bank on, Rubio faces an imperative to cover long interstate distances quickly, perhaps more than any other candidate, as he splits his time and manages expectations among Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

“The difference between us and the other candidates is that some candidates are focused on only one place and we, of course, are campaigning in multiple places,” Rubio told the The Des Moines Register, shortly before boarding his jet for a rally and fundraiser in Dallas. “We’re supposed to fly out and our pilots say it’s going to get like really bad here in about an hour.”

The Rubio campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the first 10 days of 2016 alone, Rubio will have used the plane to hopscotch from South Carolina to New Hampshire to Iowa, and back to New Hampshire and South Carolina. In between, he’s used the plane to mix in fundraising/refueling stops in New York, Texas and Colorado.

While most campaigns that can afford it do use private planes at least some of the time, few made a point of emphasizing that they don’t the way Rubio’s did last year.

In its online store, for instance, the campaign offered (and still offers) supporters an opportunity to “Buy Marco a Plane Ticket” for $500. The page features a photo of a Southwest plane Sullivan had tweeted back in May, joshing it was “our luxurious campaign jet” along with the hashtag “#SpendingMoneySmart.”

But last fall, the Rubio campaign quietly traded those talking points and symbolism for efficiency.

Except for Donald Trump, whose campaign regularly rents planes he already owns, none of Rubio’s GOP rivals appear to be using jets as often as he is. (On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton travels mostly by chartered plane, and Bernie Sanders is doing so increasingly as voting nears.) That’s in part because many are camped out in particular states, as Ted Cruz rumbles across Iowa on a six-day bus trip this week, and Chris Christie, John Kasich and Jeb Bush focus on New Hampshire.

For Rubio, the jet represents a huge financial investment. Rubio ended September with just under $11 million in campaign cash and $17 million in pending television ad reservations, meaning he likely needed to raise well over $10 million in the fourth quarter just to fully fund his growing campaign operation.

Rubio’s staff headcount has doubled since Oct. 1 to more than 100, according to an aide, and he’s actively searching for a new headquarters after outgrowing the original one near Capitol Hill. The campaign has not yet released its fundraising haul.

But Rubio’s advisers believe the campaign is bringing in more money by having a full-time plane by allowing the candidate to schedule additional fundraising stops he would otherwise not be able to attend.

For instance, after the December debate in Las Vegas, the jet allowed Rubio to hold a rally in Iowa the next morning and another in New Hampshire that afternoon, leaving him time to jet to New York City for big-dollar events, including a fundraiser hosted by billionaire benefactor Paul Singer.

Rubio jetted back to Iowa the next morning, but flew to Ohio for evening and breakfast fundraisers, before returning to Iowa the next day. He soon jetted to Missouri for another fundraiser, before turning around to campaign in South Carolina.

This Wednesday, Rubio held a town hall in Iowa, visited with The Des Moines Register editorial board, then flew to Dallas for a rally and a fundraiser.

The Dallas event, to be held at the home of former Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks, is expected to raise well into six figures, with an estimated 200 attendees paying from $1,000 to $2,700 each.

“I think it makes perfect sense. It’s the only way to logistically do it,” said GOP fundraiser Roy Bailey, who helped organize the Texas event. “As a fundraiser, I don’t mind because it enables them to get to more events, which means more money. I’m very practical about it. Without it, we might not be able to have the event.”

Rubio has also used his plane to fly short hops within early states, including several flights of less than 20 minutes this week in Iowa. On Tuesday, Rubio’s plane was trapped in an unusual runway traffic jam in Mason City, Iowa.

“We get to the airport and it’s really icy, so the plane can only leave a certain way, but there’s another plane parked in the way, and they tell us you cannot take off until this plane moves,” Rubio told the audience at his next stop, Fort Dodge. “So we’re sitting there waiting and suddenly these four cars pull up. Suburbans. The doors open. Do you know who was on that plane? Do you know who made me late to this event? Hillary Clinton!”

As Rubio wrapped up his third town hall of the day, Rubio told the standing-room crowd, “I’ll be here for a few more minutes, so I hope I can say hello to as many of you as possible.”

“I know we have one more event,” he added. Left unmentioned: The next event was a fundraiser 700 miles away in Colorado.

“Twenty-seven days,” he said, ticking off the time until the Iowa caucuses. “We want to get everywhere.”

Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman contributed to this report.

