The Donald Trump train is under siege as it rolls into Florida and despite the assault from the Republican establishment he still is the odds on favorite to win the state’s March 15th presidential primary. At the moment he leads the Sunshine State’s favorite son Sen. Marco Rubio by a whopping 18 percent among likely Republican primary voters, according to an average of the latest three polls, PPP, Gravis and Quinnipiac University polls taken February 24th .
“Florida is the single biggest prize of the primary season because it is the largest state to allocate its delegates on a winner-take-all basis. If Sen. Rubio can’t win in his own home state, it is difficult to see how he can win elsewhere,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll told the press.
According to POLITICO a number of Republican consultants and political observers from Tallahassee to Orlando to Tampa to Miami, say there’s virtually no evidence that Rubio has the robust campaign in place that’s needed to shrink – let alone overcome — Trump’s lead that ranges from 7 to 20 percentage points, depending on the poll. For weeks, his team hasn’t blanketed known early voters with mail and they haven’t been calling Republicans statewide until just a few days ago. The big money and the Republican establishment is in now in the state using everything possible to keep Trump from getting Florida’s 99 delegates.
Here is Rubio’s problem his has to win Florida and he “guaranteed a victory,” but he can’t spend a great deal of time at home. There will be 13 states starting Saturday that will vote through the 12th and the last thing he can afford is a string of losses to Trump and Cruz. So starting tomorrow Rubio needs to start putting some wins on the board before the March 15th Florida primary or winning it might be out of the question.
