So Rubio has been assembling a new Three Percent Club (more like Eight Percent in the 2016 polls so far) of veteran Republican operatives. They like his compelling personal narrative — he’s the child of a bartender and a hotel maid who came to America seeking freedom and the opportunity to climb out of poverty — and his ability to connect that narrative to conservative themes of family and free enterprise. They see how he can mesmerize a room of grass-roots Republican activists or rich Republican donors. Yes, he’s only 43, and few Americans know much about him beyond his awkward swig of water during his 2013 State of the Union response. But facing a likely battle against 68-year-old Hillary Clinton, some Republicans think a fresh face will create a more favorable contrast than another Bush. Rubio’s friends say he tended to play devil’s advocate in chats about his political future, but in the end his thinking seems to have been: Why not now?

Rubio and his team do not like to talk about strategy, but in any case, the political calculus of giving up a Senate seat to seek the brass ring was not as painful as it sounds. Even if Rubio doesn’t win the nomination, he could well end up on the Republican ticket. Even if he ends up unemployed in 2017, he can run for governor in 2018 with a Republican-friendly mid-term electorate. He still has four children at home, but his wife Jeanette has always supported his ambitions. Most of all, though, Rubio concluded that he could win. He has never been afraid to run from behind — as a twenty-something knocking on doors to ask his neighbors to vote for him for West Miami commissioner, as an unknown challenging a well-known one-time TV reporter for state representative, as a back-bencher hoping to become speaker of the Florida House, and as a Senate hopeful supposedly embarking on a political suicide mission.

“Everyone always says it’s impossible, and then Marco does it,” says Rebecca Sosa, who was mayor of West Miami when Rubio first ran for office and now chairs the Miami-Dade county commission. “Some people call it a gift. I call it a blessing.”