This is not what Marco Rubio wanted to see mid-morning:
The Donald Trump juggernaut rolls into Florida where the GOP front-runner leads native son Sen. Marco Rubio 44 – 28 percent among likely Republican primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has 12 percent with Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 7 percent and Dr. Ben Carson at 4 percent.
“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.
“Florida election law makes this contest more uncertain than earlier primaries. Only registered Republicans may vote here, which raises the question of whether the flood of new voters Donald Trump seemed to bring to earlier contests will be able to participate in Florida.”
Florida is one of those “winner-take-all” primaries, with 99 delegates at stake. If the March 15 primary ends with results similar to this survey, Trump gets 99, and Rubio gets none — even with Jeb Bush no longer in the field. Heck, even pulling close won’t do Rubio any good, at least in terms of delegates.