Donald Trump is still leading the pack against his fellow Republican presidential hopefuls in the Sunshine State, but a new poll shows U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is nipping at his heels.
A poll from Associated Industries of Florida released Thursday found Donald Trump as the frontrunner for the Florida primary, taking in 34 percent in the poll of likely primary voters.
But Florida’s very own Marco Rubio isn’t too far behind Trump, taking 27 percent of the vote.
What’s more, Rubio is considered slightly more favorably than Trump is, with 22 percent seeing him very favorably while only nine percent view him very unfavorably. Nearly the same amount of likely voters (20 percent) view Trump very favorably, but his unfavorable rating is much higher than Rubio’s.
Sen. Ted Cruz comes in third place in the poll, taking 17 percent of the vote.
The poll of 600 likely voters has a slightly different methodology of surveying than other polls on the GOP field like the Quinnipiac University poll also released Thursday. Experts say the AIF method is a more accurate way to poll in primary elections.
While some polls like the Quinnipiac University poll use a random sampling of voters who self-identify their party affiliation, the AIF poll is generally a preferred method for polling.
Unlike the Quinnipiac poll, the AIF poll uses a verified list of Republican voters. AIF’s polling company determined voters’ historical behaviors, seeing whether they had voted in one of the two previous presidential primaries.
With voters who have cast ballots in the last two presidential primaries, Trump leads Rubio by a narrow margin of 34-30.
“This race isn’t over but we stress the point we have been making since December: a crowded field has done as much or more to support Donald Trump’s front runner status in Florida than probably anything he has done for himself,” wrote AIF vice president of operations Ryan Tyson. “However a growing sense of inevitability is tangible out there as these early state results come in.”
But while Trump continues to lead the GOP race, his numbers have been steady, remaining virtually the same in all the previous polls AIF has conducted. He’s stayed within the margins of polling since the beginning of AIF’s presidential polling. The group has conducted four polls of GOP primary nominees since August.
If any other states are indicators for the GOP primary in 2016, however, primary voters are turning out at a much higher rate than they have in previous election years. Turnout has been higher in all three previous primary states, each state seeing about a 20 percent increase in voter turnout.
Rubio has taken in a lot of support in recent weeks. In some instances in other states like Iowa, Trump was upside down in favorability with voters while Rubio and Cruz were right side up in polls. As a result, the latter two candidates’ numbers surged.
The same held true in South Carolina for Cruz, who had the highest negatives in polling. His numbers slid down in the primary, where he took 22.3 percent of the vote.
Rubio’s silver lining could be in the undecided voters, where he tends to have sky-high support. A lot of Republicans supporting former Gov. Jeb Bush have also moved towards Rubio after Bush dropped out of the race last week.
Around 2 million voters are estimated to turn out during this year’s primary.
If Rubio wants to gain traction with voters and snag a win Florida, he’ll need big turnout numbers, specifically in Miami-Dade County where his campaign team has a strong operation.
This survey was commissioned by Associated Industries of Florida and conducted by Tel Opinion Research on Tuesday & Wednesday, February 23 & 24th and has a margin of error of +/- 4% within the 95% confidence interval.
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
