Nearly half of Florida voters want Marco Rubio to run for re-election in the Senate, despite Rubio’s insistence that he is finished with it after his failed bid for the presidency.
A new survey from the Mason-Dixon Polling and Research firm found that 49 percent of Florida voters want Rubio to run to keep his seat. Among registered Republicans, that number jumps to 77 percent. Only 39 percent of Florida voters oppose him running for re-election.
Donald Trump last month joined the chorus of Republicans urging Rubio to run to keep his seat; after repeatedly shutting the question down, Rubio finally acknowledged that “maybe” he would be open to running if his friend, Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, weren’t in the race.
The survey showed Rubio has more support than the current candidates running for his seat, including the front-runners. Democrat Patrick Murphy got 31 percent support statewide from registered Democrats, and Republican Carlos Beruff got support from 17 percent of registered Republicans.
On both sides of the aisle, more than 40 percent of registered voters said they were undecided concerning who they are supporting in the primaries: among Democrats, 43 percent said they were undecided about which of the three candidates they would vote for, while 49 percent of Republicans said they are undecided about which of the four candidates would receive their vote.
The poll was conducted by telephoning a total of 625 registered Florida voters from May 31 to June 2. In total, 41 percent of respondents identified as Democrats, 37 percent identified as Republicans and 22 percent identified as independents.
