PENSACOLA, Fla. — When the year began, the stars could not have shone brighter for Marco Rubio, the fresh voice of newly invigorated conservatives who embodied the change that frustrated grass-roots Republicans demanded from inside their own party.

This week, facing a more complicated path than he had anticipated in his race for a U.S. Senate seat, he is hoping to begin a second act.

The Florida primary Tuesday was once going to be Rubio's chance to dispatch his main Republican opponent, Gov. Charlie Crist. But Crist bolted the party four months ago and is running as an independent in a three-way race.

Now, facing intense competition for the moderate Republicans and independents who could be the keys to victory in one of the nation's most closely divided states, Rubio is trying to show that he is more than just an insurgent protest candidate — and he is breaking with some Tea Party orthodoxy in the process.

Rubio spends less and less time trying to tap into the discontent that has been at the forefront of the midterm elections. A wiser course for Republicans, he said, is offering an alternative, not simply being the angry opposition.

"The solution isn't just to paralyze government," Rubio said in an interview as he traveled the state last week from Pensacola in the Panhandle to Miami. "Vote for us because you couldn't possibly vote for them? That's not enough."

Rubio, 39, a former speaker of the Florida House, won an ideological victory of sorts in pushing Crist from the Republican Party, but in electoral terms, Rubio has struggled to overtake the governor in the Senate race. The outcome of the Democratic primary will give voters choices across the political spectrum.

"I always knew that I'd have to run against two people who support the Barack Obama agenda," Rubio said. "I just didn't know I'd have to run against them at the same time."