One of the long-standing questions surrounding Marco Rubio’s status as the non-front-running “front-runner” of the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has been where, exactly, he’s supposed to win. Right now, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are smacking each other around trying to win Iowa, while Trump has held an unassailable lead in New Hampshire. In the history of the modern primary system, no Republican candidate has won the nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire, and the GOP establishment is finally coming to terms with the fact that both those contests may be beyond the reach of their preferred candidates. Rubio is one of those candidates, and his strategy in those states has shunned retail politics in favor of ad spending and earned media.