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Marco Rubio on Friday dubbed Donald Trump as the most vulgar person to ever run for president of the United States, writes the Guardian’s Sabrina Siddiqui:

Marco Rubio speaks at a campaign rally in Wichita, Kansas. Photograph: Paul Sancya/AP

Speaking on the morning after yet another nasty presidential debate, Rubio lambasted the Republican frontrunner. “Donald Trump has been perhaps the most vulgar - no, I don’t think perhaps - the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency in terms of how he’s carried out his candidacy,” the Florida senator told CNN.

“It’s cut into a lot of these debates and some of the things we are asked about,” Rubio added. “I would love to have a policy debate and I think that is important. We’re talking about the presidency of the United States here.”

Rubio and Trump were at the center of several contentious exchanges in the debate, the eleventh of the Republican primary. Rubio insisted it was Trump who was responsible for injecting “a level of vulgarity into the political discourse that we’ve never seen.”

“It has come to a point, where voters deserve better what they are getting out of these debates and this campaign.”

After struggling to secure more than one victory in the nominating contests thus far, Rubio is going all in on his home state of Florida - which will hold its primary on March 15. There, too, he is trailing Trump by double digits but has earned the backing of more than 80 former and current elected Florida officials.

On Friday, Rubio was also endorsed by the Orlando Sentinel, the largest newspaper in the central Florida region.

“Unlike Trump, Rubio has the knowledge and judgment to be president,” the paper’s editorial board wrote in an op-ed that was nothing short of scathing in its assessment of Trump.

“Where to begin on Trump’s judgment? His idea of political discourse is hurling or tweeting insults at anyone who dares question him,” the board wrote. “He has maligned Mexican immigrants and Muslims. He has mocked people with disabilities and prisoners of war. He has disparaged and degraded women.”

The Orlando Sentinel also lent its support to Rubio in his long-shot 2010 Senate bid. While acknowledging in its 2016 endorsement that it did not agree with Rubio on many issues - namely his hardline stance against abortion - the paper contended that the fresh-faced senator remained “the best hope” of the remaining Republican candidates.

The Miami Herald, the most widely circulated newspaper in Rubio’s hometown of south Florida, gave the senator its stamp of approval earlier this week.

Florida is now shaping up to be a do-or-die moment for Rubio’s presidential ambitions. But while Governor John Kasich has pledged to bow out of the race if he loses his home state of Ohio, also holding its primary on March 15, Rubio declined to do the same.

“We’re going to win Florida,” he told reporters while campaigning in Kansas on Friday. “We’re very confident about that. We’re prepared for a campaign that goes beyond Florida, as well.”

Despite his projection of confidence, Rubio acknowledged the contest would be close, “especially with something like Donald Trump going on and the amount of national attention he’s gotten.”