LONDONDERRY, N.H. — Marco Rubio defended a repetitous debate performance at a Sunday morning rally attended by nearly 1,000 people who showed up an hour early and waited while the Florida senator ran more than 30 minutes late.
Rubio told the crowd that he wouldn’t apologize for the point he was widely mocked for repeating Saturday evening: President Obama has worked to change America to make it more like the rest of the world. Rubio used that line several times in the debate, drawing an attack by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said the senator’s repitition shows his lack of substance.
The dust up left a mark. Rubio was deemed the loser of a Republican presidential debate for the first time in eight televised face-offs. But it is not clear how much it will matter in New Hampshire. Rubio’s camp hopes there isn’t enough time for his battering by Christie to dominate the news and cost Rubio many voters before Tuesday.
In interviews with the Washington Examiner in Londonderry, some undecided Granite Staters said the run-in with Christie was concerning. Others, Rubio supporters and undecided voters alike, said it wouldn’t impact whom they vote for Tuesday.
“Christie went after Rubio like a bulldog,” said Karen Hagan, 69, who has been leaning toward the senator. “Frankly, it made me rethink a little bit, and only from the perspective that, these kinds of attacks are going to come when he goes up against Hillary. The problem was, he kept repeating back this one phrase.”
“It made him look ridiculous,” Hagan said. “But I haven’t written him off. That’s why I’m here.”
Marni Wheeler, a Rubio supporter from Litchfield, called the debate “a circus” that did not change her mind. She plans to vote for the Floridian on Tuesday. “I like his stance basically across the board,” Wheeler said.
Rubio did not back away from the claim for which he has taken much criticism. He repeated it, both on ABC’s “This Week” and in remarks before voters gathered inside a middle school auditorium for his town hall meeting just 48 hours before the voting starts in 2016’s second nominating contest.
“I’m going to say it again,” Rubio said. “The reason why [America] is in trouble is because Barack Obama is the first president, at least in my lifetime, that wants to change the country.”
Hagan, at least, was reassured by what she heard from Rubio Sunday morning, and was prepared to vote for him again by the time she departed his town hall meeting. “Hearing him speak, first of all he was very natural,” she said. “I feel a little bit more comfortable with him as my candidate.”
Rubio was running second in the polls in New Hampshire, and rising, leading up to Saturday’s debate at Saint Anselm College, in Manchester.
Rubio’s team voiced confidence. The supportive crowd in Londonderry was clearly comforting. Rubio took questions after he spoke, and hung around for nearly an hour to court voters.
The campaign says it raised more than $600,000 online during the debate — its best fundraising night of any of the eight debates. Rubio supporters argue his early troubles during the ABC News’ broadcast were balanced by his fluid discussion of complicated issues during the debate’s second half.
His challenge is late breaking voters who might have reconsidered voting for him based on poor reviews of his performance.
“Chris Christie wants to make this campaign about attacking other Republicans. If that’s the kind of campaign he wants to run, have at it,” Rubio senior advisor Todd Harris said on Sunday. “We’re going to continue to focus on uniting the Republican Party so we can defeat the Democrats in November.”
“Christie had one mission in this debate, and that was to take Marco Rubio out, and by that measure he utterly failed,” Harris said.
