Presidential GOP candidate Donald Trump is on track to win Florida's 99 delegates in Tuesday's winner-take-all presidential primary. That leaves Trump's rival Sen. Marco Rubio with few delegates and an embarrassing loss in his home state. Though the Despite the loss -- and having no path to winning the Republican presidential nomination outright -- Rubio had vowed to stay in the race regardless.
"Tomorrow our plan is to be in Utah campaigning irrespective of tonight," Rubio said in a radio interview posted by BuzzFeed on Monday night.
Early results indicate that polls showing Trump winning Florida by 20 percent were off, but not by enough for Sen. Rubio. With two-thirds of precincts reporting, Trump led Rubio by a tidy 45 to 27 percent. Support for Ted Cruz was at 17 percent. Cruz is trying to narrow the race to him and Trump so that he can represent the anti-Trump vote. Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are now so far behind that they can only win the nomination in a contested convention.
With his chips so far down, Rubio admitted defeat on Tuesday night in Miami, congratulated Trump, and suspended his campaign.
“After tonight it is clear that while we are on the right side this year we will not be on the winning side," he said, according to The Guardian. Today my campaign is suspended.”
Trump is on track to lose Ohio, another winner-takes-all state where Republican voters took to the polls on Tuesday. Rubio had asked his supporters to vote for Kasich, who is expected to win the state's 55 delegates.
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