I think underestimating Rubio is a mistake. I prefer Cruz but I think Rubio is in the same place on the Bell Curve IQ wise. He is not where I am on immigration but he is where the independents are and like it or not there are a lot of votes to be harvested there in a Republican primary.
While Florida has been among the states with the most job growth, much of the increase has gone to immigrant workers — legal and illegal. Since 2000, more than half of the net increase in employment among the working age (16 to 65) has gone to immigrants, even though they accounted for only one-third of population growth among the working-age. Relative to other states, Florida ranked second in the nation in the increase in the number of 16 to 65 year olds holding a job, but ranked 34th in terms of the labor force participation of its native-born population in 2014. Perhaps most troubling, the labor force participation of Florida's working-age natives shows no improvement, even after the jobs recovery began in 2010. The total number of working-age natives (16 to 65) not working (unemployed or out of the labor market entirely) has increased 62 percent since 2000, and stood at 3.3 million in the first quarter of this year. Immigrants, on the other hand, have fared better; their labor force participation is higher now than in 2000 and has nearly returned to its 2007 level. Despite what can only be described as a bleak employment picture for natives in the state, many of Florida's biggest employers have lobbied for increases in the number of foreign workers, both skilled and unskilled, allowed into the country. Both of Florida's senators supported the Gang of Eight bill (S.744), which would have roughly doubled future legal immigration, on the grounds that there are not enough workers in the country. But employment data for the state do not support the idea that workers are in short supply. In fact, the available evidence indicates that there is an enormous supply of potential workers of every education level in the state. While the Gang of Eight bill is now considered politically dead by all observers, in the future Florida's political leaders should at least consider the employment situation in their state before supporting calls for significantly increasing the number of foreign workers allowed into the country. http://cis.org/jobs-in-florida-most-employment-gains-went-to-immigrants
No, he is not on the same IQ as Cruz. Cruz is one we get only once a generation or so.(politician)
He has burned himself too badly with his disaster Gang of 8 nightmare. His supporters will swing to Cruz when he either reads the tea leaves or runs out of money.