The Anatomy of a Town Hall, Part 5: Marco Rubio

With the New Hampshire primary on the horizon tomorrow, I traveled to New Hampshire this past weekend to attend two of the three front-runners’ town halls: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. I tried to book a Donald Trump rally, but was unable to fit it into my schedule.

In this article, I’ll take an inside look at the Rubio rally that I don’t believe that other news organizations really have, with videos, pictures, perspectives, and questions and answers from attendees of the Rubio rally. My take on Mr. Cruz’s rally will be published in a separate article.

After Saturday night’s debate, in which I thought Mr. Rubio stumbled, I was very interested to see what awaited him Sunday morning. What would the crowd think of his performance? How many people would even come? Would there be any enthusiasm left?

A couple of days before the town hall, I got an email saying that it had to be changed. Originally, it was supposed to be a pancake breakfast in the Londonderry High School’s cafeteria. Now, so many people had RSVPed that they couldn’t make enough pancakes, and had to move the event to another, larger room to fit the crowd.

The rally was to begin at 9:30. I arrived about 20 minutes before that, but almost the entire high school parking lot had been filled by cars. I was able to snag one of the very last spots. Heading inside, coffee, muffins, and danishes waited inside. Past that, to the left, was the rally.

People were practically bursting out of the auditorium. I had to weave my way to the back of the room just to find a space that wasn’t completely mobbed. I estimated that 1,000 people had attended; Mr. Rubio said that 800 did. I was honestly surprised with just how many people showed up.

In the time before Mr. Rubio arrived, I made my way around the auditorium, asking a number of people their thoughts on the race. Each person was more than happy (and more than nice) to answer everything I had for them. Their individual answers were interesting; their collective thoughts were striking.

The first thing I realized was that everyone I talked to at this rally were undecided. Some were leaning one way or another, but no one said they were certain they’d vote for any candidate. One person even told me that he was going to make his final decision “in the voting booth.”

Asking about Mr. Rubio’s performance in the debate, each attendee said that they felt that he did poorly, save one, who thought he had won the debate. However, it didn’t seem that it drastically hurt their chances of voting for Mr. Rubio. Everyone that I talked to thought Chris Christie had done particularly well in the debate, save the same person who thought Mr. Rubio had won it. Nearly everyone thought that Mr. Carson had a terrible debate.

When I asked who they were deciding between, nearly everyone said Mr. Cruz, Mr. Rubio, or Jeb Bush, with one person saying they really like Ben Carson, and another saying they also like Mr. Christie and John Kasich.

However, one person united everyone in the audience: Donald Trump. Every single person that I talked to said that they would not vote for Mr. Trump under any circumstances. Nearly everyone rolled their eyes or shook their head when Mr. Trump was mentioned; one person said they were “mortified” by how he acted and the possibility that he could win the nomination.

Despite this, about half of the people that I talked to thought that Mr. Trump would indeed go on to win the nomination, with about a quarter saying they didn’t know, and the other quarter thinking that Mr. Rubio would win it.

The people I met were all extremely nice, and I was able to have a number of meaningful conversations. For example, one person that I talked to really liked Carly Fiorina, but thought that she couldn’t win, and thus was leaning in favor of Mr. Rubio now.

Mr. Rubio arrived about 30 minutes late, at about 10:00. His appearance brought thunderous applause. After the pledge of allegiance and a brief introduction, Mr. Rubio began speaking.

Unlike the beginning of the debate, Mr. Rubio came out strong and only got stronger as he kept talking. He doubled down on his talking point from the night before, saying that Barack Obama does indeed know what he is doing to the United States, and that the fact needs repeating.

He spoke about the need to strengthen the military and to keep Israel a close ally, and he spoke about the need to create a new American century. The enthusiasm in the crowd was palpable, which, again, I was a little surprised by considering how Mr. Rubio had performed in the debate.

Mr. Rubio’s best moment came when he spoke about his parents. He talked about his father and mother struggling to survive. But they were able to because they lived in the United States. Eventually, they had to give up on their loftiest life dreams, Mr. Rubio said, but they knew it was worth it because they were giving their children the ability to dream themselves.

Unlike Mr. Christie’s charges that Mr. Rubio doesn’t answer questions, Mr. Rubio took a number of questions after his prepared remarks had ended. He spoke about topics that ranged from the environment, to Syria, to helping reinvigorate the economic engine of the United States.

Interestingly, a group of doctors asked Mr. Rubio about President Obama’s “moonshot” of trying to cure cancer, and asked him what his moonshot would be. The same people also were at the Cruz rally that I attended later in the day, got a chance to ask a question, and asked what Mr. Cruz’s moonshot would be. Mr. Rubio said that his moonshot would be to cure Alzheimer’s.

Mr. Rubio spoke and answered questions for almost an hour. He then stayed around for about half an hour, meeting people and shaking hands. While waiting to meet him, one person said they were no longer undecided because of the town hall and signed up to vote for Mr. Rubio. The consensus in the crowd was that the rally was excellent.

Unfortunately, Mr. Rubio was not able to meet everyone. Already running late to his next rally, Mr. Rubio began to leave before he was able to meet a couple of hundred people. I was able to get through the crowd to shake his hand while he was leaving, however.

I came away with the impression that the death of Mr. Rubio’s campaign has been overstated. That said, I do still believe that his debate performance will hurt him in tomorrow’s primary.