'We're gonna be the nominee' declares Rubio the Robot after coming fifth - and now he blames the media not himself for disastrous performance

Marco Rubio turned his ire on the media today as his opponents reveled in his stunning fall from grace in New Hampshire.

The 44-year-old United States senator last night admitted that he failed his supporters in a Saturday evening debate and his performance was not as strong as he'd been proclaiming.

'Many people are disappointed. I'm disappointed. Our disappointment is not on you. It's on me,' he said. 'We did not do well on Saturday and so listen to this: That will never happen again.'

This morning the Florida lawmaker made a similar claim but said he wouldn't have lost Tuesday's New Hampshire primary if it hadn't been for extensive media coverage of gaffes. 

And he claimed he would still be the last Republican standing. 

'We're gonna be the nominee,' he said on the Today show. 'It's just gonna take a little longer, but we're gonna get there.'

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The morning after the night before: Marco Rubio turned his ire on the media this morning as he reveled in his stunning fall from grace in New Hampshire

Getting out of dodge: Rubio and his sons Anthony and Dominick walk across the tarmac this morning before departing from Manchester-Boston Regional Airport after his fifth place finish

A bit of light reading? Rubio boards a charter plane to depart for South Carolina clutching several books, including The Twelfth Imam, a Christian fiction book by Joel C Rosenberg

'The debate is the debate, and I don't think people at home analyze it the same way as the media,' he said. 'The problem is that 72 hours later the media fixated on that.'

Rubio said, 'The last thing people heard about our campaign in many cases was something bad happened on Saturday night with Marco Rubio.'

The freshman senator came in fifth place after a better-than-expected third in Iowa that could have propelled him into second in New Hampshire.

Instead, John Kasich took second in the Granite State, losing only to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz came in third and Rubio rival Jeb Bush, also from Florida, came in fourth. 

Roughly 1,500 votes separated Rubio from Bush in the primary. To catch Cruz he would have needed another 3,000.

That's 'enough in an election like this to make a difference,' he proclaimed on Today.  

He then said, 'To the extent that we finished shorter than what we wanted to, it was because of me' and that's 'something that's never going to happen again.' 

Rubio rebuffed political analysts saying he didn't have a bad debate - he's a bad candidate, saying, 'That's absurd.'

'No one in this race....has shown greater depth, knowledge, understanding or greater judgement on the foreign policy issues than I have.'

I can even prove it, he declared to Today show host Savannah Guthrie. 'You can ask me any question you want on any policy issue you would like....I don't know what you're gonna ask me.' 

'What really hurts is you cant get any other message out because all they want to ask you about the debate that night,' he said, reflecting on his New Hampshire loss.

Still, he believes he will ultimately come out on top in the GOP race.

'Donald Trump's not gonna be the Republican nominee,' he confidently stated.

Marco runs on Dunkin: Rubio attempted to raise spirits on the plane with some donuts for the family, including his daughter Amanda, left

In flight: Rubio puts on a brave face as he talks with reporters on board his charter flight from Manchester

Rubio similarly argued on Fox and Friends,'Obviously Saturday night, the debate went the way it went and then the media coverage over the last 72 hours was very negative about it and so forth.

'So the last thing that voters heard before going into the booth or yesterday was, you know, something bad happened on Saturday night. So it made it very difficult for us to get any other message across.'

He said,'I felt bad, our supporters work worked really hard. They did a great job. Our team here did a great job. 

'To the extent that we finished shorter than we wanted to, I think it had to do with the fact that Saturday night and the last three days and the coverage. So that's on me. 

'That ain't ever going to happen again,' he promised, and said his team was 'looking forward to South Carolina.'

'We're headed there right now. We're getting back on the road here. We're going to win this campaign. We're going to win this primary. It's important for the country and I'm fired up about that.' 

Rubio came into New Hampshire buoyed by Marcomentum after his Iowa showing.

He was quickly derailed and placed fifth in the New Hampshire polls after Trump, Kasich, Cruz and Bush. 

With just 10.4% of the vote with close to two thirds of the results counted Rubio, 44, glumly addressed the 500 loyal supporters who had rallied in Manchester last night. 

In his address and on Twitter he took responsibility for the loss, acknowledging for the first the impact of his blunder at Saturday's GOP debate that saw him dubbed 'Rubio the Robot' when he crashed under pressure and repeated the same line over and over and over again.

The blows were inflicted by Chris Christie, the hard-charging New Jersey governor who saw an even worse performance last night, coming in well below Rubio at 7.4 percent.

Family: Marco Rubio attends his New Hampshire Primary closing rally along with his wife Jeanette and his four children, Amanda, Daniella, Anthony and Dominick.

Christie is expected to suspend his presidential campaign after earlier saying he was 'taking a deep breath' following the poor result.

While the voters gave Christie little credit for taking on Rubio, his attacks were a severe drag on Rubio's support.

Exit polls, reported by CNN, showed that half of Republican voters had made their minds up in the past few days, and two-thirds said recent debates had been important to their decisions.

The apparent beneficiaries were Ted Cruz, whose campaign had been bracing themselves for as low as fifth place, and Jeb Bush, who desperately needed not to be humiliated in New Hampshire to stay alive in the race. 

He goes on to South Carolina with some degree of momentum, while Cruz will be more at home in a race where the evangelical vote holds sway.

Until now Rubio had attempted to dismiss the robot debacle as a media creation of little significance to the voters. But tonight he shouldered the blame.

Speaking over the chants of 'Marco!' that rose in response as the crowd cheered their candidate he continued: 'It's not about this campaign. It's about this election – what's at stake.

'We have a president that's been doing tremendous damage to this country – trying to redefine the relationship between government and the people…undermining the constitution…the second amendment…civil liberties.'

Continuing his theme he told the crowd: 'He's gutting our military and betraying our allies. Are we going to keep doing this?'

Dogged by his gaffe: An unknown opposing campaign had a man dressed as a robot trailing the candidate all day, although Rubio did his best to laugh it off

'No!' came the bullish response from supporters apparently unbowed by the night's defeat.

'If Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton win,' Rubio warned. 'All of the damage Barack Obama has done to America becomes permanent. That's why they must not win.

'If we don't win this election we may lose this country.'

Earlier the crowd had waited impatiently as they watched first Hillary Clinton then Bernie Sanders deliver their speeches to their supporters. Trump followed on and finally, with his triumphant address over, Rubio took to the stage in the Radisson Hotel in Manchester at 10.10pm.

Flanked by his wife, Jeanette and children Amanda, Daniella, Antony and Dominick, Rubio drew on a theme that has come to define his campaign as he said that if either of the Democratic candidates won: 'My children and your children will not inherit the greatest country in the world.'

He admitted: 'We did not wind up where we wanted to tonight. But that does not mean this is where we'll wind up.'

Rubio has made great play of his Cuban parents' humble life in America as a bartender and a maid in Florida and Las Vegas.

Nemesis: Chris Christie is expected to suspend his presidential campaign despite being largely credited with inflicting the damage on Rubio's New Hampshire campaign

Something to smile about: Ted Cruz had been the major apparent beneficiary of the Rubio debacle

Regained some energy: Jeb Bush came ahead of Marco Rubio despite weeks behind him in the polls

Last night in his defeat he said he was reminded of a troubled time in their lives when he was just seven years old and his father had been working as an apartment manager.

He lost his job and with it the family's home and was forced to seek work in a bar – something he had not done for 20 years.

'He could only find work as a bus boy,' Rubio said. 'This gentleman well into his fifties was carrying buckets of ice and cleaning glasses…but he was not prideful. He was willing to do whatever it took so that our family would be better.'

The lesson he took from the memory, according to Rubio, was that he too had to be willing to do whatever it takes to make America successful.

Because in spite of his loss, he said, he had faith that 'America will rediscover the principles that made her great.

'Americans in the end have always got it right.'

Presumably for Rubio, getting it right means casting a vote for him next time.

Attempting to leave New Hampshire on an upbeat note despite the poor showing in the state's primary Rubio insisted: 'You will see us again because we're coming back in November.

'New England, Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts we'll see you in a few weeks and South Carolina – we are on our way.'