After bashing each other in the final debate before the crucial Florida primary, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich traveled south to Miami on Friday to woo Hispanic power brokers.

But before either candidate could utter a word, they were upstaged.

Sen. Marco Rubio gave sweeping remarks on immigration — the kind of personal, stirring speech Gingrich and Romney could only wish they had delivered.

Neither Gingrich, his Florida momentum stalled after his South Carolina victory last week, nor Romney, riding a wave after his strong performance in a Jacksonville debate Thursday, could match the reception Rubio received in the Doral Golf Resort & Spa at a conference of the Hispanic Leadership Network, former Gov. Jeb Bush’s organization.

Of the two GOP primary front-runners, the crowd of several hundred — almost all of them Hispanic — clearly preferred Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. He was introduced by his wife, Ann, and the youngest of his five sons, Craig, who lived in Chile and speaks some Spanish.

Confident and not wearing a tie, Romney received applause and whistles when he declared, “We are not anti-immigrant.”

“We are not anti-immigration,” he added, a reference to a controversial attack ad Gingrich aired earlier this week before the campaign pulled it following scathing criticism from Rubio and other prominent Florida Hispanics.

Gingrich, who spent much of Thursday atoning for the ad, took another hit Friday after Bush told the National Review that Gingrich should not have bashed Romney for hiring staffers of former Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist. Rubio, too, had chastised Gingrich for that comparison. Former Crist supporters also work for Gingrich.

And though Gingrich paid an early visit Friday to the influential Latin Builders Association, the group ultimately endorsed the only other candidate who appeared in person, Rick Santorum. Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, gave a more personal speech than Gingrich, with a more explicit appeal to Cuban-American voters.

Santorum told the story of his grandfather, an Italian immigrant who worked in Pennsylvania coal mines until he was 72 years old.

“Those were the hands that dug freedom for me in America,” he said. He then praised Miami’s Cuban-American community for its “passion for freedom.”

Texas congressman Ron Paul, the fourth candidate in the race, has not actively campaigned in Florida, which holds its primary Tuesday. Early voting ends Saturday.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Friday showed Romney with a 9 percentage point lead over Gingrich among likely Republican voters.

Coming off Thursday night’s debate, in which he didn’t land any decisive blows against Romney, former House Speaker Gingrich mostly avoided mentioning his chief rival Friday in his two Miami campaign stops.

To the Latin Builders, Gingrich emphasized his connections as a young congressman to Ronald Reagan. He proposed erasing the federal Environmental Protection Agency — which he called a “dictatorial, job-killing agency” — and recasting it as the “Environmental Solutions Agency.”

To the Hispanic Leadership Network, Gingrich — his wife, Callista, by his side — tried to appeal to Puerto Ricans living in Central Florida. But on that issue, too, Gingrich was one-upped by one of his opponents: Romney on Friday received the coveted endorsement of Puerto Rican Gov. Luis Fortuño.