He said he saw no real path forward for his campaign after losing Florida and its 99 winner-take-all delegates. He acknowledged he could have stayed in the race with the intention of seeking the nomination at the convention, but said he would have had to run a shoestring campaign with no money to defend himself on the airwaves. Even if he had won the nomination against the odds, Rubio said, the victory could prove pyrrhic.
“Winning a general election with a nominee that a significant percentage of the base thinks stole it, even though you did it through the rules of the RNC, would be pretty much fatal for the party,” Rubio said, though he added that many Republicans will not vote for Trump, either.
But he’s rooting for someone else to stop Trump from winning the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination — someone who can go into the convention with more delegates and a better claim than Rubio believes he would have been able to muster.
He didn’t endorse either Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the two other remaining candidates. But Rubio praised Cruz as “the only conservative left in the race.”
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