“After tonight it is clear that while we are on the right side, this year we will not be on the winning side," Marco Rubio said. | Getty Rubio suspends presidential campaign A Florida loss to Trump proves fatal to ailing campaign.

Marco Rubio suspended his presidential campaign Tuesday night in Miami after losing his home state to Donald Trump.

After falling far behind Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the delegate race, Rubio needed a win in Florida just to survive. But he couldn’t overcome the strong support for the party’s unconventional and controversial frontrunner, who won Tuesday’s primary with more than 45 percent of the vote.


Rubio, a charismatic, young Hispanic lawmaker who outlasted his former mentor Jeb Bush in what began as a 17-candidate GOP nomination fight, finished in second place in Florida with 27 percent.

“After tonight it is clear that while we are on the right side, this year we will not be on the winning side," Rubio said.

He also delivered a rebuke to Trump's heated rhetoric, saying he was proud that he did not run his own campaign by preying on Americans' anxieties. "America’s in the middle of a real political storm," Rubio said.

The Florida senator said it was "not God’s plan that I be president in 2016" and made a plea for Americans to not give up on the sense of optimism he tried to push. "I ask the American people do not give into the fear, do not give into the frustration," he said.

His tactical strategy of running a mass media campaign made sense—until Trump, a reality TV star who has monopolized media campaign coverage like no presidential candidate ever before, completely upended it. The brash businessman’s promise to restore the country’s greatness, and his willingness to take a wrecking ball to the GOP establishment, excited rank-and-file voters in a way Rubio’s forward-facing optimism and potential general election electability did not.

The Republican establishment went all in for Rubio at the eleventh hour, dropping $15 million in negative ads attacking Trump that ran over the last several weeks in Florida.

Rubio himself had already survived more than $40 million in attack ads from his GOP rivals, much of it from Bush’s super PAC. After outlasting Bush and Chris Christie, Rubio failed to consolidate establishment support, losing significant chunks of it to John Kasich.

Marco Rubio's full speech suspending campaign

Over the last several weeks, Kasich did well enough in several states to prevent Rubio from reaching the delegate thresholds and, in Virginia, to deny him his first outright win.

Ultimately, it was Trump who bedeviled Rubio, whose efforts to attack the frontrunner with the puerile insults that are Trump’s trademark boomeranged back at him. In the closing days of his campaign, Rubio lamented the violence and unrest incited by Trump at his rallies, questioning whether he’d be able to support him as the eventual nominee.

Rubio, after ignoring party elders who urged him to wait before running for president, now faces a future outside of politics. His Senate term ends in January 2017.