EASLEY, S.C. — Marco Rubio carried a message to South Carolina: He is “at peace” with his failure in New Hampshire.

He doesn’t mean it casually, as though he has simply come to terms with what happened Feb. 6, when Chris Christie commanded the debate stage and turned Rubio’s own rhetorical brilliance into a withering caricature of a robotic, scripted young senator that sent him spiraling to a fifth-place finish.


He means it, Rubio told a supporter shaken by the knock-down of his preferred candidate, as a Christian.

“The concept of peace in Christianity is not simply peace, like, no-war peace. It is the peace of being at peace with whatever God decides,” Rubio told Don Pendleton, a retiree who’d taken the microphone and told Rubio that he was disappointed after the 2016 contender’s dismal showing in New Hampshire until seeing the swell of support in the room. It was a heartfelt statement that gave the senator an opening to dig deep. “Here is what I am at peace with: Whatever happens next, God will either give me the ability to get around it or the strength to go through it. I think that is also true for our country.”

When he finished, Rubio basked in thunderous applause from a 2,000-person, standing-room-only crowd, roughly 10 percent of the town’s population.

His bruises from New Hampshire have healed — and not simply because of his faith. The 44-year-old senator was indeed humbled by the humiliation he suffered before heading to South Carolina, but his chances of capturing the Republican nomination haven’t completely gone south. Donald Trump sits high atop the polls here, but Rubio is positioned to finish either second or third. A poll Monday night taken entirely after Saturday's debate shows Rubio tied for second with Ted Cruz at 18 percent.

If Rubio simply finishes ahead of Jeb Bush, who is polling a distant fourth or fifth in some surveys, and emerges from this state, always critical to his chances, as the establishment’s comeback kid, it will be because of his campaign’s quick adjustment in the face of adversity — and its unwavering faith in the candidate himself.

They ignored top donors who called after New Hampshire and offered to assist with debate prep. They tuned out pundits saying that Rubio’s campaign was effectively over. Campaign manager Terry Sullivan and senior strategists Todd Harris and Heath Thompson huddled with Rubio and decided to recalibrate slightly by loosening the reins and allowing voters — and the news media — to see more of the candidate himself.

Suddenly, a candidate known for staring past and flat-out ignoring reporters attempting to speak with him as he greets supporters was answering every last question on his campaign plane and inviting a few journalists to lunch with him and his family. Before Rubio took the stage for Saturday night’s debate here in Greenville, his first foray back onto the national stage since the debacle in Manchester a week before, his campaign went ahead and booked him on all five Sunday shows the morning after — the “full Ginsberg,” as it’s known.

The quick reboot, followed by a confident debate performance Saturday night (a CBS poll showed 32 percent of respondents thought Rubio won the night), has enabled Rubio to move beyond the “Robot Rubio” narrative before it overtook his campaign, giving voters curious after New Hampshire about which Rubio was the real one the confidence that his poor performance there had been an outlier.

“We committed to doing all five Sunday shows the day after the debate because we had confidence he’d do great,” said a top Rubio campaign adviser. “We did less debate prep before this debate because we just felt like he was ready. The key for us coming out of New Hampshire was we’ve got to let Marco be Marco.”

After a few listless days on the trail in New Hampshire after the debate, Rubio has regained his energy, confidence — and sense of humor. In describing his student loans, only paid off since he wrote his book, Rubio on Sunday delivered his standard laugh line that the autobiography is “now available in paperback.” Then, as he rarely did before, he broke the fourth wall and told the audience a secret about the performance mechanics of his routine.

“The press people have heard that joke — it works, it always works, that’s why I keep saying it!” he quipped, smiling wide as if to alert the crowd that the punch line was imminent. “If something is true and it works, you should keep saying it over and over again, right?”

The spontaneous mix of laughter and thunderous cheers that erupted wasn’t that of an audience politely humoring a candidate — it was the sound of a connection being sealed.

“Campaigns are long and hard and people make mistakes. What we learn that is valuable is how candidates deal with mistakes. Do they turtle up, or do they charge ahead and knock down their own often self-generated negatives,” said Bruce Haynes, a GOP strategist and Florence, S.C., native. “In this case, Rubio is passing his test with flying colors. He’s pitched Robot Rubio in the junkyard and gone with Marco Unplugged. He’s getting great crowds and energy. It’s no surprise. Voters love a comeback story and Rubio may be on the road to writing a big one in South Carolina.”

The stakes, of course, remain high; and Rubio's rising poll numbers continue to make him a target. On Monday, opponents pounced after he told an audience in Rock Hill that the Gang of Eight immigration bill he co-sponsored was never meant to become law. His larger point, one he’s made before, was that the legislation that passed the Senate was sure to be changed if it had ever been taken up by the House (it wasn’t). But the intense scrutiny of his statement served as a reminder that the “let Marco be Marco” strategy — that ad-libbing by any candidate — carries risk.

But Rubio and his campaign clearly sense not just that they have survived the emotional roller coaster of New Hampshire but that the race is coming back to them here in South Carolina, a state his team knows well — his campaign manager and super PAC director have deep ties here, and Rubio has some key evangelical leaders behind him — and its changing demographics align with his profile.

On Saturday, Justice Antonin Scalia’s death suddenly fused control of the Supreme Court for years to come to the result of November’s presidential election, and offered Rubio a prime opportunity to emphasize a central selling point: electability. “We cannot lose this election,” said Rubio, after asserting that gun rights, states rights and the protection of life are all at stake. “Which means we have to nominate a conservative who can win.”

Beyond the unpredictability of the news cycle, the dynamic within the GOP nomination battle is also setting up well for Rubio here. Christie — Rubio’s team admits he “got in Marco’s head” — is now out of the race. Jeb Bush, who kept himself alive by finishing just ahead of Rubio in New Hampshire, is stuck in single digits in public and private polls of South Carolina GOP primary voters; and his decision to enlist his brother, former President George W. Bush, to campaign on his behalf in Charleston on Monday evening only further crystallizes the choice for establishment Republicans as a generational one — exactly as Rubio himself frames it.

While Bush campaigns with Sen. Lindsey Graham, Rubio is stumping here with Sen. Tim Scott and Rep. Trey Gowdy, both representative of an ascendant generation of young conservative leaders in a state undergoing demographic changes resulting from economic growth and an influx of transplants.

“This isn’t the same state George W. Bush won in 2000,” said state Rep. Neal Collins, one of Rubio’s South Carolina campaign co-chairs. “South Carolina is a blend now, and somebody like Rubio who can unite different groups does well.”

The questions Rubio got in Easley reflected this shifting state: A veteran asked about improvements to the Veterans Affairs system; a white high school student with an African-American girlfriend asked about improving race relations. The diversity and size of the crowd stirred Pendleton, who lingered in the auditorium after Rubio wrapped up and watched as he was surrounded by selfie-seeking fans just below the stage.

“It’s good seeing people of different ages here, especially the young people. There’s so many millennials out there. I think Rubio touches them more,” Pendleton said.

“After the New Hampshire deal, I felt disappointed because I thought he was going to be the guy. When I came in, and I saw all the cars in the parking lot, I started tearing up. And when I got in here, I did it again. When I saw the place fill up, I just thought, this is something different now.”