He's only the third Republican primary candidate to lose his own state despite winning at least one other state, according to Smart Politics.
Dr. Eric Ostermeier looked into the history books, and Rubio's 18.7 percent Florida loss to Donald Trump is almost unprecedented.
Ostermeier looked back to the beginning of the primary era, 1912. Oddly, that year, incumbent President William Howard Taft lost his home state of Ohio to Teddy Roosevelt, while Roosevelt, in turn, lost his own home state of New York to Taft. Twelve years later, Hiram Johnson, a senator from California, won another
Presidential primaries in those times weren't quite what they are
In 1980, George H.W. Bush narrowly lost his home state of Texas to Ronald Reagan.
Televangelist Pat Robertson and conservative columnist Pat Buchanan ran in '88 and '96, respectively. Both are sons of Virginia, and both lost that state. It should be noted that both were insurgent candidates representing the right wing of their parties. Virginia, incidentally, is where most of the dreaded "D.C. insiders" live.
Here's what sets Rubio apart from Bush, Robertson, and Buchanan,
So that makes Rubio the first serious Republican presidential candidate in the modern era to have lost his home state in a primary despite having
Rubio, of course, exited the race after the humiliating loss but won Minnesota, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C.