Donald Trump continues to lead the Republican presidential field in Florida, but is losing his edge in the key battleground state.
The GOP front-runner is the first choice candidate for 21.7 percent of Republican voters in Florida, but only 6 percent of voters named him their second choice in a University of North Florida poll released Monday.
Meanwhile, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has jumped to 19.3 percent support, putting him well within the margin of error against Trump. A poll commissioned last month by One America News Network showed Carson trailing Trump in the Sunshine State by 12 percentage points.
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In third and fourth place behind the two outsider candidates are Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (15 percent) and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (9 percent), respectively. With 81 percent of Florida Republicans holding a positive view of Rubio, the state’s junior senator earns the highest favorability rating of any GOP candidate in the UNF poll.
Bush has a net-positive favorability rating of 64.9–28.8 percent while voters are more divided when it comes to their feelings toward Trump, who is viewed favorably by 52.5 percent of Republican voters in the state and unfavorably by 39.9 percent. Respondents were not asked to give an opinion on Carson.
The survey of approximately 650 adults likely to vote in Florida’s Republican primary was conducted Oct. 8-13. Results contain a margin of error of 3.87 percent.
