Carlos Curbelo Releases Campaign Poll Showing Lead Over Joe Garcia

On Monday, Miami-Dade School Board member Carlos Curbelo released a poll taken by his campaign as he continues his bid to defeat U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, D-Fla., in November. Garcia ranks as one of the top Republican targets in the nation.

The poll from McLaughlin Associates shows Curbelo taking 44 percent with 40 percent backing Garcia and 16 percent still undecided. Back in May, McLaughlin had a poll showing Garcia up 46 percent to 39 percent.

Garcias continued ethics problems -- including key staffers being investigated by the federal government -- clearly hurt the freshman congressman. More than three-fifths of those surveyed -- 61 percent -- are aware of the investigations and only 38 percent of those voters are backing Garcia, while 51 percent of them favor Curbelo.

Garcia is upside down in the poll with 33 percent of those surveyed seeing him as favorable and 36 percent viewing him as unfavorable. Despite a majority -- 52 percent -- remaining undecided on him, Curbelo does better with 35 percent seeing him as favorable and 13 percent as unfavorable.

The poll of 400 likely voters was taken from Sept. 9-11 and had a margin of error of +/- 4.9 percent.