Polls: Donald Trump’s Lead In Florida Down To Single Digits
By Space Coast Daily // March 10, 2016
TWO NEW POLLS SHOW RUBIO WITHIN SINGLE DIGITS
BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA — Two new polls show a tighter race between Donald Trump and Marco Rubio in Florida’s Republican Primary, with Trump’s lead dropping as low as seven percent.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has called for Rubio to withdraw from the primary, but the Rubio campaign points to Cruz’s low level of support in the Sunshine State as evidence that Rubio is the only candidate with a viable chance to prevent Trump from gaining all of Florida’s 99 delegates.
In the race for the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the GOP nomination, Trump leads with 458 delegates, followed by Cruz at 359, Rubio at 151 and Kasich at 54.
“Ted Cruz is killing Marco Rubio’s chances of winning his home state,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, said in a release.
“It appears that Cruz won’t be able to vault over both Rubio and Trump, but Cruz is attracting enough Florida voters to keep Rubio from beating Trump in this winner-take-all contest.”
In the Suffolk University poll, Trump led with 36 percent support, followed by Rubio at 27 percent, Cruz at 19 percent and Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 10 percent.
The statewide survey of 500 likely Florida Republican presidential primary voters was conducted March 7-9, 2016, using live telephone interviews and a split sample of landline and cell phone numbers.The margin of error is +/-4.4 percentage points at a 95 percent level of confidence.
Suffolk’s poll was released on the same day as a Washington Post/Univision poll of Florida that found Trump leading Rubio by seven percent, within 1.5% of the poll’s margin of error. Across Florida, Republican support divides along gender, racial and generational lines.
Among Hispanic Republicans, Rubio has the highest favorability mark at 76 percent, slightly higher than Cruz’s 68 percent positive rating but far higher than Trump’s 36 percent favorable rating.
More than 60% Hispanic Republicans report an unfavorable opinion of the GOP front-runner. Trump holds a double-digit edge over Rubio among white voters (42 to 28 percent), while Rubio leads Trump by 49 to 20 percent among Hispanic Republicans, with Cruz at 21 percent.
Trump leads Rubio by 12 points voters ages 50 and older, while they are nearly tied among those under age 50 (37 percent for Trump vs. 35 percent for Rubio). And Trump holds a 13-point lead among men (42 to 29 percent) while he and Rubio are about even among women Republican voters, 35 percent for Trump and 33 percent for Rubio.
According to the same poll, 74 percent of Republican primary voters remain undecided about a Senate candidate. No candidate breaks out of the single digits: Two contenders, Lt. Gov. Carlos López-Cantera and Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), stand at 6 percent, while Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.) receives 5 percent. Candidates Todd Wilcox and Carlos Beruff trail farther behind.
The Post-Univision poll surveyed a random sample of 450 likely voters ahead of Florida’s March 15 Republican primary, including interviews on land-line and cellular phones.
The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points for overall results; the error margin is 9.5 points for results among the sample of 164 Hispanic likely voters.
