Support for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s presidential campaign has skyrocketed since the second GOP presidential debate, according to a new YouGov/Economist poll.
Rubio gained approximately nine percentage points and moved from fifth place before the debate to second place afterward, according to YouGov polling.
Donald Trump still leads the Republican field with the support of 25 percent of those surveyed, but lost eight percentage points since YouGov’s pre-debate poll. Rubio, who holds the No. 4 in the latest Washington Examiner presidential power rankings, finished second with the support of 16 percent of those surveyed, and Ben Carson fell from second to third place at 15 percent, down two points from YouGov’s pre-debate poll.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz finished in fourth place at 9 percentage points and Carly Fiorina placed fifth at 8 percent.
“Two weeks ago, nearly half of Republicans picked Trump as their first or second choice. Now, after the second GOP presidential debate, that number has dropped by 12 points,” wrote Kathy Frankovic for YouGov. “One in four now choose Trump as their first choice; last week a third did.”
Trump appears to have suffered more in the polls than any other candidate — his favorability rating has also taken a nosedive in recent weeks.
Before the second GOP debate, 68 percent of Republicans surveyed held a favorable view of Trump, while 28 percent viewed him unfavorably. Following the debate, 56 percent of Republicans viewed him favorably — a drop of 12 points — while 41 percent of GOPers view him unfavorably. Approximately 59 percent of all adults view Trump unfavorably, up six percentage points from before the debate.
Carson and Rubio scored the highest favorability ratings among Republicans.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s poll numbers did not change from before the debate, which YouGov reads as bad news for the GOP heavyweight.
“The old conventional wisdom that Bush would be the inevitable GOP nominee seemed to disappear sometime in August as Trump remained on top in the polls,” Frankovic wrote. “More name Trump, Rubio, Carson, and Fiorina as possible November 2016 winners than say that of Bush. GOP optimism about the election prospects for Fiorina and Rubio has risen dramatically in the last two weeks — 11 points for Rubio and 16 points for Fiorina. … However, the percentage of Republicans who think Trump can win a general election has dropped ten points in two weeks.”
Whether YouGov’s newest poll showing Rubio rising and Trump sliding marks the beginning of a trend or serves as an outlier remains unclear at this juncture. The poll surveyed 2,000 respondents from September 25-29 in “web-based interviews” and had a 2.8 percentage point margin of error.
