• by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, February 4, 2016

Florida Senator Marco Rubio may be on his way to becoming the anointed establishment candidate in the GOP primary if he does well in New Hampshire. After much jockeying over the past many months, the Republican field appears to have shrunk to three candidates who truly have a shot at the nomination.

A Canadian-born Cuban, an American-born Cuban and a bombastic, unapologetic real-estate mogul are the top three Republican candidates remaining.

There has been much talk of ideological “lanes” in the Republican primary.

There’s the establishment lane, which Rubio seems to have secured. Farther to the right, there’s the more conservative or “outsider” lane, a tranche of the party that is consolidating around Ted Cruz. Third is the unexpected and completely unconventional Trump lane.

In the past few days, Rubio has picked up important endorsements from politicians who seemed to be waiting for the stars to align behind one of the “moderate” GOP contenders.

For the first time since August, someone has surpassed Jeb Bush in what FiveThirtyEight calls the “endorsement primary.” You guessed it: Marco Rubio.

Shortly following the results of the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only African-American Republican currently in the Senate, endorsed Marco Rubio. Another senator from a swing state, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, has also joined the ranks of Rubio endorsers.

With the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, some expect Rubio’s team to line up other big-name endorsers ready to come out of the woodwork at opportune moments as primary season heats up.

Former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum is now publicly in Rubio’s corner.

Despite where Rubio may fit in the GOP spectrum when compared to Cruz or Trump, he is a staunch conservative who loathes the current president and thinks that “Hillary Clinton is disqualified from being president of the United States.”

Even ultraconservative pundits are warming to Rubio’s conservative nature.

Rejecting the proposition that the Florida senator is an “establishment” candidate, Rush Limbaugh exclaimed: “I don’t like this idea that Marco Rubio is all of a sudden being labeled as an establishment candidate. I’m just telling you, I don’t see Marco Rubio as anything other than a legitimate, full-throated conservative.”

We can expect Rubio to be the target of attacks from both sides during Saturday’s ABC/IJReview GOP debate. He may even exit the debate hall with a few more kinks in his armor.