In 2016, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was one of 17 candidates who vied for the GOP's presidential nomination.

However, the conservative lawmaker recently made clear that he has no plans to launch another White House run. 

"I don’t have any plans to run for anything this year"

According to Breitbart, Rubio made that declaration on Wednesday during an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Audio/transcript of this AM interview w/ Senator @MarcoRubio. The senator is not running for president and his commentary on Ukraine is worth reading or hearing: https://t.co/sQY1iaETf7

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) March 14, 2023

"I don’t have any plans to run for anything this year because, you know, timing is everything in life," Rubio was quoted as telling the host.

"And we’ve got a lot of stuff going on. I’ve really been focused on hoping we’d be in the majority these next two years. And that’s what I was focused on," the Florida senator continued.

Trump clear frontrunner in Republican primary

"But now, we’re in the minority. But we have a majority in the House, so I have a bunch of things we’re working on, and that’s really what I’ve been focused on," Rubio insisted.

"The presidency is not the kind of thing you can just decide overnight to do," he pointed out, adding, "You’ve got to prepare yourself for that and have all the infrastructure in place. So I have no plans or intentions to do anything, run for anything over the next couple of years."

As of now, former President Donald Trump, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy are the only declared Republican candidates, with most polls showing Trump to be the race's frontrunner.

Interestingly, Trump's closest competitor is someone who has not even officially entered the race: Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Hill reported on Wednesday that a survey conducted by Quinnipiac University showed DeSantis as being supported by 32% of respondents, 14 points behind Trump. Meanwhile, Haley was backed by just 5%.

Pollster says Trump "is seeing no erosion" in support

Tim Malloy serves as a polling analyst for Quinnipiac University, and he said that "DeSantis might be the buzz in the GOP conversation."

Yet Mallory stressed that the former president "is seeing no erosion and, in fact, enjoys a bump in his lead in the Republican primary."

The poll was conducted from March 9 to March 13 among 1,795 American adults, with 1,635 self-identifying as registered voters. Six hundred and seventy-seven were either Republicans or Republican-leaning voters.