23:16

When Marco Rubio took the stage before supporters after an underwhelming performance in the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, the Florida senator was brutally honest: It was his own fault.

Rubio had stumbled badly in the last Republican presidential debate, offering a robotic performance in a critical exchange with New Jersey governor Chris Christie just two days before voters took to the polls. And despite Rubio and his team’s best efforts to brush the moment aside, the senator acknowledged as the results rolled in that it mattered.

“It’s on me.” Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

“A lot of people are disappointed. I’m disappointed with tonight,” Rubio told a couple hundred supporters in a hotel ballroom. “But I want to tell you that disappointment 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 crowd of voters and volunteers erupted at first in disagreement, seeking to cheer him on despite his lackluster showing. But they quickly broke into thunderous applause as he switched gears to a more optismistic outlook of the future.

“Tonight we did not wind up where we wanted to be, but that does not change where we are going to wind up at the end of this process,” Rubio said.

“Not all days are going to be great days,” he added. “We’re not always going to get things the way we want, but in the end I’m confident that not only will this campaign be successful, but America will be successful as well.”

