In Florida, Trump looms as cloud in Rubio's Sunshine State

Rubio is counting on Florida to reshape the Republican contest that Trump has dominated by winning three of the first four states to vote.

"Voters have been choosing new ideas and new energy over the old formula of sheer time served in political office," he wrote.

[...] he sees those as "necessary characteristics for the next president to shake up the status quo" and plans to vote for Trump.

The campaign employs at least 10 people in the state and has been collecting supporter information at large rallies like the one in Pensacola.

Yet these late moves — and the fact that Trump has been weakest with those who decided in the final stretch, according to exit polls — face another Florida reality:

Officials project that slightly more than half of the state's Republican voters will have cast ballots before the primary.

Backers of the previous GOP presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, began advertising there a full month before the election; as of Thursday, Florida had seen almost no presidential commercials this time around.

Rich Heffley, a Florida Republican strategist who had been helping Bush in this election, said successful presidential campaigns have typically moved into Florida early and stayed "straight on through the general election."