Marco Rubio’s uneven debate performance shortly before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary has emboldened a trio of governors seeking to stop his rise in the Republican race for president. But they are likely to leave Republicans with a muddled mix of establishment contenders and no clear favorite to challenge Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
At the heart of the battle between Rubio and Chris Christie, John Kasich and Jeb Bush is whether the Florida senator has the experience.
Christie and his fellow governors have staked their White House hopes on New Hampshire, the nation’s first primary contest in the race to collect delegates for parties’ nominating conventions later this year.
Without a strong showing, each will face enormous pressure to drop out from Republican Party leaders eager to rally around a single candidate who can challenge Cruz and Trump, the top two finishers in last week’s lead-off Iowa caucuses.
The billionaire Trump has held a commanding lead in New Hampshire preference polls for months. The Texas senator Cruz is in the mix with Rubio and the governors, though his campaign is more focused on the Southern states that follow later in the primary calendar.
The prospect of Trump or Cruz winning the nomination has set many Republican leaders on edge. That anxiousness is likely to increase if New Hampshire voters leave Rubio and the governors clustered together in the primary results, failing to anoint one as their preferred challenger to the front-runners.
Rubio emerged from Iowa looking as though he was that candidate, with a third-place finish in Iowa that was stronger than expected.
But the first-term senator stumbled in the weekend debate when challenged about his qualifications. Rubio acknowledged the ensuing criticism during a rally on Sunday.
