New Hampshire was supposed to be the nail Marco Rubio would drive into Jeb Bush’s coffin.

Now, it might be the beginning of Rubio digging his own political grave.


The two warring Floridians spent much of the New Hampshire campaign eyeing each other, with Bush blasting Rubio in millions of dollars in ads. But in the end, both of them ended up finishing behind Donald Trump, John Kasich, and, barring a last-second shift in the counting, Ted Cruz.

Rubio took to the stage to address his supporters Tuesday night and was surprisingly frank about his poor debate performance on Saturday and its impact on his finish.

New Hampshire’s notoriously late-breaking voters veered away from Rubio after watching him get walloped by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for awkwardly repeating over-rehearsed lines and not taking questions from the press. The groundswell of “Marcomentum” coming out of Iowa flat-lined.

"I know many people are disappointed. I'm disappointed with tonight," Rubio told supporters at the Radisson hotel in downtown Manchester. "I want you to understand something. Our disappointment tonight is not on you, it's on me. It's on me. I did not do well on Saturday night, so listen to this: That will never happen again."

The admission of failure was especially surprising because Rubio had been reluctant to acknowledge any problem in the campaign appearances on Sunday and Monday, when he might have won some voters back with a show of contrition.

Now, friends and longtime allies agree, both Rubio and Bush are leaving the primary so badly battered that the chances of either of the rival Floridians nabbing the GOP nomination are tougher than ever.

“Rubio just blew it big time -- having nothing to do with Bush,” said Tony Fabrizio, pollster for former presidential candidate Rand Paul. "For Bush — despite the better than expected showing — still never has so much been spent for so little."

Exit polls showed that a sizable number of voters decided late, that they were influenced by recent debates and that they didn’t break for Rubio or Bush, but instead chose Trump and Kasich.

Kasich’s second-place finish represents a setback for Rubio and Bush, whose campaigns had hoped that a poor performance in New Hampshire by Kasich, who appeals to the same establishment voters courted by the two Floridians, would lead to his departure from the race.

Cruz’s third-place finish also reflected badly on Rubio and Bush. Cruz spent less than $600,000 in the state yet finished ahead of fourth-place Bush who, between his super PAC and campaign, spent as much as $36 million on television. Rubio spent about $15 million and finished in a close fifth.

Rubio’s campaign estimated that Bush and his allies spent as much as $16 million attacking him in New Hampshire. And they’re bitter about it, though they are already expecting more of the same over the next week in South Carolina. The pro-Bush Right to Rise has $495,000 in ad time in the state booked, according to The Tracking Firm.

Rubio's campaign has $630,000 reserved and the pro-Rubio super PAC Conservative Solutions PAC has $660,000.

And both seem as determined as ever to take the other one down.

“South Carolina is gonna be a bloodbath. Jeb and his people wanted to attack Marco in New Hampshire about abortion? Let’s see how that plays down there. And then there’s Common Core,” one Rubio adviser said.

Bush’s campaign late Tuesday circulated a memo showing it would go after Kasich and Rubio who “has demonstrated no respect for the nomination process and expects this to be a coronation.”

“Jeb’s people want to call this a victory but it’s not. What this is: a symptom of everyone training their guns on Marco and the media looking to take him down a notch,” one Rubio insider said. “And, yes, Marco f--- up big time on stage. There’s no denying it.”

One longtime Rubio supporter who backs Bush faulted Rubio’s campaign for the slip-up. He said they drove Rubio too hard and too long and he didn’t have enough sleep. In the days before New Hampshire primary, Rubio struggled to find his footing coming off as subdued and tired during some of his final campaign stops. Rubio also repeated himself, again, this time about family values in his last campaign rally in Nashua, N.H., before the primary.

“It was the pace. He couldn’t keep up,” the source said. “And then they doubled-down on it – tripled and quadrupled down on it afterward. That was surreal.”

But, the source added: “Jeb’s back, baby!”

While Bush’s advisers were overjoyed at beating Rubio, Bush seemed to have trouble making his fourth-place showing look like a win in a state where he predicted he’d win, spent more than anyone else and had about 100 events.

“This campaign is not dead,” Bush insisted. “We're going on to South Carolina.”

Bush is expected to be joined by his brother, President George W. Bush, on the campaign trail. He will also rely heavily on Sen. Lindsey Graham to campaign across the state for him.

The poor showing for both in New Hampshire, though, leaves a mark on their candidacies.

“Iowa only means so much,” said Terry Holt, a veteran Republican strategist. “You gotta make it pay off somewhere and with New Hampshire gone, South Carolina looms larger than before. And that’s gonna be a knife fight.”

