Rubio’s Iowa crisscross approach bends caucus campaign norm

Marco Rubio for President.

Despite the scattershot appearance of Rubio’s schedule, a pattern of building toward caucus day was beginning to take shape over the weekend as he drew large, diverse and engaged crowds, picked up endorsements from some of Iowa’s larger newspapers and appeared Monday with the state’s freshman US senator, Republican Joni Ernst.

“I am proud to endorse Sen”.

Voter after voter that turned out to Senator Marco Rubio’s event at a local community center, many from the same church, said they were there to answer one question: “Which nominee will represent my faith?”

Pataki failed to gain traction during his own presidential bid, polling only in the low single digits and consistently missing the threshold for participation in primetime GOP primary debates.

His endorsement follows former Texas Gov. and former 2016 presidential candidate Rick Perry’s endorsement of Sen.

“I am not anti-Ted Cruz”. Lindsey Graham of SC, recently endorsed Jeb Bush, Mr. Rubio’s mentor and the former Florida governor. “We just have a really bad president”, Rubio said.

Rubio has made his football superfandom an essential part of his campaign.

Even if it were doable, arguably Rubio fans in Iowa would still be better off sticking with their guy instead of backing Cruz for fear that, by boosting Cruz over Trump, they’d be setting Rubio up to face a more formidable opponent in SC and beyond. Although New York mogul Donald Trump leads in recent Iowa polls, a Cruz win would puncture his candidacy, the Dallas lawmaker said.

Those statistics would likely come as no surprise to Deleana Roseland, a 50-year old Gilman resident who teaches conflict management and said she was considering Trump as well as Rubio.

“I think it probably helps the overall perception”.

“It’s a very straightforward requirement”, Rubio said.

Pataki was the only GOP presidential candidate who failed to appear at the Republican Party of Florida’s Sunshine Summit held in November.

Earlier this month, as we reported here, Rubio announced that current GOP Texas House members James Frank of Wichita Falls and Larry Gonzalez of Round Rock, along with former state Reps.