--- title: Marco Rubio Accidentally Hit a Kid in the Face With a Football description: Hard knocks on the campaign trail canonical: https://time.com/4001978/marco-rubio-kid-football/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-18T18:08:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:23:34.765Z article:section: Politics og:title: Marco Rubio Hit a Kid in the Face With a Football og:description: And it became a gif og:url: https://time.com/4001978/marco-rubio-kid-football/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Marco Rubio Hit a Kid in the Face With a Football twitter:description: And it became a gif twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Marco Rubio (Accidentally) Hit a Kid in the Face With a Football  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Aug 18, 2015 6:08 PM UTC  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Aug 18, 2015 6:08 PM UTC Marco Rubio’s visit to Des Moines spiraled out of control on Tuesday when he hit accidentally a child in the face with a football. The errant throw came while Rubio was tossing the ball around with a group of kids in Iowa. According to a Bloomberg tweet, the child is okay. The throw, which was captured on video by Bloomberg News, went viral as a gif. Rubio, along with Jeb Bush and Scott Walker, have been losing ground on the 2016 presidential campaign trail to Donald Trump. A new Fox News poll shows Rubio in third place among the GOP candidates with 12% of votes. Trump a whopping commands 25% of national support. > [](https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/633634805469458433) The throw has already become a meme: one of the best replaces the football with a Pokemon ball: > [](https://twitter.com/darth/status/633686661289897986) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4001978/marco-rubio-kid-football/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4001978/marco-rubio-kid-football/"},"headline":"Marco Rubio (Accidentally) Hit a Kid in the Face With a Football","datePublished":"2015-08-18T18:08:45.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:23:34.765Z","description":"Hard knocks on the campaign trail","url":"https://time.com/4001978/marco-rubio-kid-football/","keywords":["2016 Election","Newsfeed","2016 Election topic","Sen. Marco Rubio"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliana Dockterman","jobTitle":"Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4001978/marco-rubio-kid-football/","name":"Marco Rubio (Accidentally) Hit a Kid in the Face With a Football"}}]}] ```