Explaining Rubio's defeat

One of Marco Rubio's informal circle of advisers was nervously looking at his iPhone early Tuesday evening at Rubio's "Florida primary night celebration" at Florida International University. "The exit polls look brutal," he told me.

He pointed to a question that asked Florida voters how they felt about the federal government — enthusiastic, satisfied, dissatisfied, or angry? Forty-five percent of the voters said they were dissatisfied, while another 40 percent said they were angry. How could the sitting senator from Florida — the highest-ranking federal official in his state — survive at the polls when 85 percent of his voters are dissatisfied or angry with the federal government he represents?

He didn't. Donald Trump beat Rubio 41 to 34 among voters dissatisfied with the federal government and 58 to 17 among voters angry with the government. Rubio won 50 to 25 among those satisfied with the federal government, but that was only 11 percent of the electorate. (The two percent who said they were enthusiastic about the federal government was too small to divide between the candidates.)

Nevertheless, at 6:00 p.m., Team Rubio was still looking for a way to stay in the race. What if he lost by single digits, maybe 5 to 9 percentage points? If that happened, and John Kasich pulled out Ohio, then maybe Rubio could stay in as part of the general #NeverTrump effort.

After all, Rubio had been saying for a couple of days that he would go on to Utah Wednesday, win or lose. He would campaign in the next primary state, and then do some fundraising in California, and then on and on. Of course, he had to say that. But when the votes actually came in Tuesday night, the results were as brutal as the exit polls. Trump won with 45.8 percent to Rubio's 27.0 percent — almost exactly the margin the polls had predicted going into the primary.