As voting in Florida approached last month, Marco Rubio and his team repeatedly insisted that he'd win his home state. The team pulled out all of the usual rejoinders for why people thought he would falter, including the trusty old the polls are wrong. (In 2014, we looked at how often the polls were actually wrong when campaigns claimed they were: Almost never.)

"I think a bunch of networks are going to have to ask their pollsters for their money back," Rubio said on Fox News the day of the primary. "Quite frankly, I think a lot of people are going to be embarrassed tonight and are going to want refunds from the money they spent on these polls, because we're going to win Florida."

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Donald Trump won Florida by 18.8 points. The average of those polls that Rubio disparaged figured he'd win by 18.3. The pollsters kept their money.

Of course, Rubio knew he would lose. He no doubt had polls of his own, and those polls showed him losing. So why say it? To keep turnout from tanking. To show strength. Maybe because he was hoping for a miracle.

Over the longer term, Rubio had been saying he would win Florida for another reason: To keep resources flowing in. After Jeb Bush dropped out, Rubio surged in the state, but he was never close to Trump. For the casual observer, though, his argument made sense. We can win, we will win, don't give up. So some of those people kept giving money, believing that to be the case. Only after he dropped out did people stop giving.

When he lost Florida, though, it was clear to everyone that he couldn't win, as it had been clear to Rubio well beforehand. So Rubio dropped out. Campaign over.

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On Wednesday afternoon, former White House adviser David Plouffe tweeted about Bernie Sanders.

The same argument may apply in a different way to Ted Cruz and John Kasich.

Until Tuesday, Cruz had insisted that he might be able to cobble together enough delegates to clinch the nomination. A lot of the contests were winner-take-all, after all, and so he could potentially keep winning large numbers. Then he got skunked in New York and joined Kasich among those who couldn't possibly win enough delegates to clinch the nomination. He and Kasich continue to suggest that they can win, but now Cruz has to admit that his win would have to come from delegates voting at the convention.

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Let's go back to Sanders. Sanders insisted he would win New York. He talked about the momentum he had in national polling and from winning a string of contests mostly out west. His supporters accepted that, occasionally even constructing their own elaborate explanations to bolster his points.

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With the exception of one obviously out-of-whack poll showing Hillary Clinton up by 50 points in March — a poll that sharply shifted polling averages in her favor — Clinton's lead in the polls gave her an average 12-point lead in the month of April. She won by nearly 16.

Sanders almost certainly knew that he wasn't going to win New York but he, too, needed to keep up spirits among his supporters. Not just his New York supporters, mind you. New York was a linchpin to his bigger argument, the idea that he could overcome the state's unfriendly demographics by virtue of the steamroller that his campaign had become. His team's response to Clinton's wide delegate lead has often been that he'll make it up in future states; as his campaign manager said on Tuesday night, there are still "a lot of delegates on the board." But, as has been the case since the Ohio and Florida primaries in March, Sanders has no realistic path to winning enough of those delegates to win, barring a Clinton implosion.

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His supporters, though, are probably less inclined to accept that than were Rubio's. Sanders is running against the establishment nearly as fervently as Donald Trump, meaning that analysis of his efforts is often assessed through a lens of skepticism, depending on the source.

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It's possible that Sanders sincerely thought he would win New York, just as it is possible that Rubio thought he might win Florida. But Sanders is uniquely positioned to leverage skepticism about the media and the party from which he's hitched a ride to stay in the fight. Cruz and Kasich can, for now, argue that special circumstances can hand them the nomination — and it's not like Republicans are clamoring to have them clear the path for Trump. Rubio had no choice but to drop out, since it was obvious that his bravado was just a front and that he couldn't win after all.

Sanders, who himself has no realistic path to the nomination, can nonetheless stay in and keep arguing he's got a shot (however long) without repercussions. Clinton needs his many voters in six months, after all, so she's not going to make a sound. The media can point out that the results of individual contests don't reshape the future of the contest, but those who wish to dismiss the media will do so. So it's left to Sanders.

On Wednesday morning, his campaign sent out an email. It read, in part: