Marco Rubio reportedly banking on losing first 4 states, winning GOP nomination anyway

Publicly, Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential campaign says it is competing to win the first four Republican presidential nominating contests in Iowa (Feb. 1), New Hampshire (Feb. 9), South Carolina (Feb. 20), and Nevada (Feb. 23), but the Florida senator's team also tells the Palm Beach Post that Rubio doesn't need to win any of those primaries or caucuses to win the nomination. History isn't on Rubio's side — no GOP nominee in the post-1968 presidential nomination era lost both Iowa and New Hampshire, and Rubio is down by at least 10 percentage points in both those states.

But the Rubio campaign is also right on the math — numerically, he doesn't need any of those states to win. "In a field this big I think we're going to be competing in March regardless of what happens in February," Rubio spokesman Alex Conant tells the Post. Some experts are sympathetic to the idea. "If you believe that an establishment candidate will win, at the moment it doesn't look like it will come from Iowa or New Hampshire," says University of Minnesota primaries number-cruncher Eric Ostermeier.

Florida Rep. Tom Rooney (R), the first member of Congress to endorse Rubio, told the Post that he thinks "Marco has a real good chance of getting third in Iowa, a real good chance of getting second in New Hampshire," but put one caveat on his optimism: "I don't know how much you can game-plan Donald Trump." Read more about Rubio's strategy at the Palm Beach Post.

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