Marco Rubio’s case for the GOP nomination is simple. He believes he can emerge as the consensus candidate who bridges the divide between the Republican establishment and tea party activists. And the 43-year-old believes that the conservative grassroots is ready for “Something New,” which not coincidentally is the name of a Swedish dance song that played Monday night at the end of his presidential campaign kickoff rally in Miami.

Rubio has decided his odds are good enough that he’s willing to give up a second term in the Senate.


With a thousand supporters chanting “Marco” at Freedom Tower, the son of Cuban immigrants invoked his inspiring personal story — suitable for framing as the embodiment of the American Dream — and showed he will inject a youthful vigor to the field.

“We Americans are proud of our history, but our country has always been about the future,” he said. “We must change the decisions we are making by changing the people who are making them.”

Rubio’s strategists believe that the GOP base is in no mood for a coronation. So they plan to aggressively court support from both movement conservatives and establishment leaders exhausted by the idea of another Bush and drawn to the appeal of a relative newcomer – the son of a bartender and hotel maid – and his promise of “a new American Century.”

“I have heard some suggest that I should step aside and wait my turn,” Rubio told the crowd. “But I cannot, because I believe our very identity as an exceptional nation is at stake and that I can make a difference as president.”

Rubio strategists intend to compete in all four early states and can outline a plausible path to victory in each. The recent tour to promote his campaign-style manifesto, “American Dreams,” provided a head start by generating good crowds and positive buzz.

He’ll be in New Hampshire on Friday for a state GOP-sponsored cattle call. He has events planned in Iowa and South Carolina before the end of April, and a possible visit to Nevada is in the works.

Rubio’s youth provides a not-at-so-subtle contrast with both Hillary Clinton, 67, and Jeb Bush, 62, who served as Florida’s governor when Rubio was in the state House. The senator himself noted Clinton’s entry into the race during his announcement speech.

“Just yesterday, a leader from yesterday began a campaign for president by promising to take us back to yesterday,” he said. “But yesterday is over, and we are never going back.”

Rubio spoke of a generational choice, framing the race just as some of his allies and other boosters have in ecent weeks.

“I think Rubio is the one,” influential conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News recently. “If the theme is new and old, I think he’s got a chance to be the sort of Kennedyesque one.”

Other Republicans compare Rubio to Barack Obama, both favorably and unfavorably: a first-term senator with few concrete accomplishments, with an ability to inspire and capable of turning the page after an unpopular president.

Rubio is less confrontational and more temperamentally suitable for party elites than Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, his two Senate colleagues who already announced. But other than his sponsorship of the comprehensive immigration bill in 2013, which damaged his standing among conservatives, Rubio’s voting record is nearly identical. Since arriving in 2011, he’s voted “no” on legislation as often as almost any other Republican.

Unlike Paul, he worked from his first days in the Senate to carve out a specialty as a hawk on foreign affairs – which has become an asset with the rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East. Rubio manged to name-drop Cuba, Iran, Israel, China and Russia during his 15-minute speech.

The decision to move ahead with a presidential bid is colored by a strong belief in Rubio’s circle that there is no strong GOP frontrunner.

The dark horse role — and the big wager on a campaign that breaks in his direction late in the primary season — suits Rubio, as long as he can raise enough money to remain among the top tier of candidates. This allows him to avoid the level of scrutiny faced so far by Bush or even Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, whom Rubio’s team views as out of his depth on foreign affairs.

There’s good cause for Rubio’s confidence in his strategic plan. He frequently points to his long-shot experience entering the Florida Republican primary for Senate in 2009 — when he was at three percent in the polls against Charlie Crist, a sitting governor who had the GOP establishment and major donors behind him. Over time, Rubio gained so much ground on Crist that the then-governor dropped out before the primary to avoid a drubbing.

Early polls, which show Rubio in single digits, have obscured an important facet about Rubio’s 2016 candidacy: his high personal favorability numbers, and the fact that voters often pick him as their second choice.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last month reflected that upside among the rank-and-file. More Republicans, 56 percent, said they could back Rubio than any other candidate, including Bush (49 percent). Only one-quarter in that survey said they could not back Rubio, compared to 42 percent for Bush.

Iowa might be the hardest of the early states for Rubio to win. The caucuses have lower turnout, and opposition to anything perceived as amnesty is particularly strong. Rubio denies his immigration reform bill offered amnesty; his allies feel that most of the other top candidates are also soft on the issue – including Bush and Walker – and that the issue will be on the backburner by the time the first GOP votes are cast.

A big part of his pitch, even if implicit, was that as a Hispanic from Florida he is more electable in a general election. In Spanish, he recalled an old line his father used to tell him: “In this country, you will achieve all the things we never could.”

As a Catholic, who also attends services at a Southern Baptist megachurch — and revealed in his 2012 memoir that he was a Mormon for a time during his childhood — he’ll have the opportunity to compete hard for social conservatives.

Rubio nodded to social conservatives throughout the announcement speech. He started by saying he decided to run after months of prayer and ended by requesting prayers. In between, he invoked God’s call for courage in Joshua 1:9 and said he is not afraid of what’s ahead because he knows that the Lord travels with him wherever he goes.

Rubio will also pursue establishment-oriented voters who are unenthused about Bush and view other candidates are not hawkish enough. The thinking is that Cruz, Paul, Ben Carson, and others divide up the remaining conservative bloc.

Top Iowa Republicans note that Rubio does not need to win the caucuses to win the nomination – the last two nominees did not – but that he would be well positioned if he finished in the top three.

New Hampshire, which goes a week later, is central to Rubio’s strategy. Jim Merrill, the GOP operative who spearheaded Mitt Romney’s 2012 primary win in New Hampshire, is now on Team Rubio. [Several other Romney 2012 alums are working for Rubio too, including political director Rich Beeson.]

Rubio plans to spend a lot of time doing the kind of town hall meetings that allowed John McCain to win in 2000 and 2008 – taking questions and mixing it up with voters.

“Rubio needs to peak late, not early,” said a New Hampshire Republican. “For the next six months, his goal should be to get into most people’s top three choices … Let some of the others have their month, then fade.”

The Nevada caucuses follow New Hampshire. Rubio spent a big chunk of his childhood in Las Vegas, and he still has as much family in the Silver State as the Sunshine State. His electability pitch could resonate in a perennial swing state that currently has a Hispanic Republican governor.

South Carolina is the last of the four early states allowed to vote before March 1. Much of Rubio’s inner circle cut its teeth in the state with the first Southern primary, including campaign manager Terry Sullivan and senior strategist Heath Thompson, who led George W. Bush’s South Carolina effort in 2000.

Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina senator who now runs the Heritage Foundation, was one of the first national players to endorse Rubio in 2009. Rubio has cultivated a friendship with popular GOP Sen. Tim Scott during their years in Congress, and Rubio’s even taken his family on vacations in the Palmetto State.

Several states will vote during the first two weeks of March, but their delegates are awarded proportionally – limiting anyone’s ability to run away with the nomination.

March 15 is the first day that states can award their delegates as winner-take-all. If Rubio comes out of South Carolina strong, or if Bush stumbles and does not catch fire, he’d be very well positioned for that next stretch.

The only question then would be whether Rubio has the cash to compete with the other survivors.

“We won’t have the most money,” said a senior Rubio adviser, “but we’ll have enough.”