Two Florida politicians are still in the running to snag the Republican presidential nomination, with a new poll of South Carolina voters putting U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., slightly ahead of former Gov. Jeb Bush as voters’ first choice for the nominee.
The Augusta Chronicle, Morris News Service and Fox 5 Atlanta-sponsored poll found nearly 15 percent of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina would vote for Rubio in the primary while a smaller percentage -- almost 11 percent -- would cast their vote for Bush.
Rubio and Jeb fell behind business CEO Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for the first choice nominee slot, but when it came to voters’ second choice for the nomination, Rubio rose to the top, taking nearly 19 percent of the vote.
The poll is good news for Rubio, who has had setbacks in recent weeks.
The Florida Senator struggled in New Hampshire. A less-than-stellar debate performance caused him to fall behind Bush, taking only 10 percent of primary voters in this week’s primary election, finishing in fifth place.
Bush took a slightly higher percent of New Hampshire voters, but both have had issues swinging momentum in their favor against the likes of Cruz and Trump.
The majority of voters sampled in the poll -- 42 percent -- self-identified as “very conservative,” while over one-third of voters (36 percent) said they would describe themselves as “somewhat conservative.”
More than half of voters (65 percent) sampled identified as Evangelical Christians. Thirty-five percent said they wouldn’t consider themselves Evangelical or born-again Christians.
Nearly all respondents (over 90 percent) of voters had participated in a South Carolina primary election before.
The six remaining Republican presidential primary candidates are set to debate at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina on Saturday evening. The debate will be hosted by CBS and is the final debate before the South Carolina primary on Feb. 20.
