“Jeb’s people want to call this a victory but it’s not. What this is: a symptom of everyone training their guns on Marco and the media looking to take him down a notch,” one Rubio insider said. “And, yes, Marco f— up big time on stage. There’s no denying it.”

One longtime Rubio supporter who backs Bush faulted Rubio’s campaign for the slip-up. He said they drove Rubio too hard and too long and he didn’t have enough sleep. In the days before New Hampshire primary, Rubio struggled to find his footing coming off as subdued and tired during some of his final campaign stops. Rubio also repeated himself, again, this time about family values in his last campaign rally in Nashua, N.H., before the primary.

“It was the pace. He couldn’t keep up,” the source said. “And then they doubled-down on it – tripled and quadrupled down on it afterward. That was surreal.”

But, the source added: “Jeb’s back, baby!”