Still, Rubio directed most of his blame at Trump. Fellow Trump rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich also placed blame on the frontrunner. Now, the question is whether their supporters agree.

Yes, some Rubio voters blamed Trump. “He brought it on himself,” said Chickie Migliaccio, of Kissimmee, who came to see Rubio in Lakeland. “He incites people, he’s provocative,” added Chickie’s husband Pat. “Hey, I’m from New Jersey. We don’t talk that way in New Jersey.”

But many of Rubio’s supporters, and Republican voters in general, are big consumers of conservative media, and for years they have seen reports about MoveOn.org, about Occupy, about Black Lives Matter, about Soros, about Ayers — a veritable roster of villainy on the left. Now they are seeing (accurate) reports that some of those groups were behind the Trump protests in Chicago. And they are supposed to blame Trump? Not likely.

But that doesn’t mean they support Trump. Indeed, the reactions at the small Rubio event in Lakeland served to show that voters can support a non-Trump candidate and at the same time believe Trump was unjustly targeted by left-wing activists. Take Cynthia Dugan, who has liked Rubio for years. “I support him because he’s a gentleman and he’s got good ethics,” Dugan told me. “He’s a family man, and he absolutely knows the issues.”