In a consolation of sorts after getting drubbed on Super Saturday, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio easily won the Republican presidential primary in Puerto Rico on Sunday, getting all the 23 delegates at stake. He was the only candidate in the four-man GOP field to campaign on the island, whose residents cannot vote in the U.S. general election, Fox News reported.
Even with his new delegate haul, Rubio still badly trails front-runner Donald Trump who had a total delegate count of 384 after all the votes were counted in Saturday's contests in Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine, according to the New York Times tally board. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz inched closer with 300 delegate total while Rubio had 125. Ohio Gov. John Kasich brought up the rear with 37.
His Puerto Rico victory was the second for Rubio who won the Minnesota GOP Caucus on Super Tuesday.
Rubio is placing most, if not all, of his hopes in his home state, which will vote on March 15, seeing this as the turning point of his campaign. There are 99 delegates up for grabs in that winner-take-all contest. But winning in Florida will be an uphill climb for Rubio since Trump leads in the polls.
However, the Puerto Rico win should help Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, rally South Florida's big Latino voting bloc, pundits say.
On Tuesday, March 8, four states will hold their GOP contests with a total delegate haul of 150 broken down as follows: Michigan with 59 delegates, Mississippi with 40, Idaho with 32 and Hawaii with 19.
On Saturday, March 12, the District of Columbia will hold its Republican convention where 19 delegates are up for grabs. Guam will also hold its GOP convention where nine delegates are at stake.
Then on March 15, Aside from Florida, four other delegate-rich Republican races will take place. In North Carolina, 72 delegates are at stake. In Illinois, the winner takes most of its 69 delegates. In Ohio, Kasich's home state, the winner takes all the 66 delegates. Missouri offers 52 delegates while Northern Mariana Islands holds a winner-take-all caucus with nine delegates for the taking.
Rubio downplayed his performance in the four states that held GOP caucuses or primaries on Saturday, saying that he had had long known "this would be the roughest period of the campaign," The Hill reported.
