The Senate isn't the only place marking Marco Rubio down as absent; critics say the Republican presidential candidate is also MIA in Iowa, home to the 2016 election's first caucus. "He did all the big cattle calls, but he didn't put in the work on the ground either prior or post those events," Steve Deace, an Iowa radio host who endorsed rival Ted Cruz, said, adding that a caucus "requires months of relationship-building that he never did."
At many town halls, Rubio reportedly takes a minimal number of questions and doesn't interact much with the media. Recently, at a candidate forum in Des Moines, for instance, Rubio made a quick departure after speaking. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, The Washington Post reports, stuck around until "nearly midnight."
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