Oh dear. Marco Rubio had a shocker in last night’s debate

But Christie certainly rattled the relentlessly on-message Florida senator in Saturday night’s free-for-all Republican presidential debate.

Harris said Rubio’s campaign had raised “three times” more money during the debate than previous debates.

“Let’s dispel, once and for all with this fiction that…”

“I could not even imagine how we would begin to think about taking a mom or a dad out of a house when they have not committed a crime since they’ve been here, leaving their children in the house”. With each similar Rubio response, Christie urged the audience to take note of how the Floridian was confirming the knock the governor was advancing.

“The drive-by shot at the beginning with incorrect and incomplete information and then the memorized 25-second speech that is exactly what his advisors gave him”, Christie said.

“There it is”, Christie said.

Christie, observing Rubio’s repetition, then commented in wonderment: “There it is – there it is, the memorized 25-second speech”.

Christie pointed out that as a governor, he had much better experience than Rubio, as he was helping people in his state while Senators focused on bills and speeches. But it was Christie’s brass-knuckled attack that forced Rubio to lose his footing through the first half of the debate. Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and John Kasich all turned in outstanding performances, which may disrupt the state of play ahead of Tuesday’s votes.

“This is a problem, for me, I understand firsthand”, Cruz said, describing how his half-sister fell into drugs and recounting how he and his father searched for her in a crackhouse hoping to bring her back from the brink.

I like Marco Rubio, he’s a smart person and good guy, but he simply does not have the experience to be president of the United States. For a candidate whose biggest argument is electability, that’s a troubling idea to have floating around Rubio. For the last seven years, the people of New Hampshire are smart.

During remarks to reporters in the spin room after the debate, Bush surrogate Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) a minute to criticize Trump’s temperament – something Cruz has subtly done on the campaign trail time and time again – the lawmaker largely passed on the opportunity, saying the temperament question is something voters have to ask themselves. The question was, ‘Did he fight for his legislation?’ ” Christie shot at Rubio’s plan to enforce current immigration laws. “This is a president – this is a president who is trying to change this country”.

“The Keystone Pipeline, without eminent domain, it wouldn’t go 10 feet”, he said.

Without going into too many specifics, Trump said that his plan would make people “compete” for insurance in the free market – a move he said would prevent people from lying “on the street dying”.

With several candidates facing make-or-break votes in New Hampshire, Saturday’s debate was filled with fireworks. We don’t know. But we do know this after Saturday night: There will be a lot to rehash when and if the GOP somehow winds up with a Rubio-Christie or Christie-Rubio ticket. The response wasn’t really addressed to movement conservatives but to the Republican-leaning independents who could boost Kasich on Tuesday’s primary. And other candidates in the establishment lane refused to go after Kasich, even when the moderators lobbed them easy opportunities. Christie took heat during the Ebola crisis for quarantining a nurse who returned from West Africa in New Jersey.

Yet the report that Christie uses to substantiate that claim said the exodus was prompted by a host of reasons.

Cruz, fresh off his Iowa win but still a good 20 points behind Cruz in New Hampshire polls, also struggled to find a breakthrough moment during the debate. But when asked to answer for his campaign’s false statements about Ben Carson suspending his campaign during the Iowa caucuses, Cruz came across as slippery and untrustworthy.