Senate Candidates Remain Largely Unknown, Poll Shows

A new poll shows Democrats start off with the early advantage in the race to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in 2016 but the top candidates remain largely unknown. Rubio is running for the Republican presidential nomination and has said he will not run for a second Senate term in 2016. 

Quinnipiac University released a poll on Monday which shows U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Fla., doing better against some of the top Republican contenders than fellow Florida Democrat U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson. Murphy is already running for the Democratic nomination while Grayson has left the door open to getting in the race. 

Murphy leads U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis 39 percent to 31 percent. When matched against Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, Murphy leads 40 percent to 28 percent. DeSantis is currently running for the Republican nomination while Lopez-Cantera is expected to formallyl enter the race in the middle of July. 

The Republicans do better against Grayson in the poll. Grayson leads DeSantis 38 percent to 32 percent and beats Lopez-Cantera by the same margin, 37 percent to 31 percent.

None of the candidates are that well-known. Murphy is seen as favorable by 22 percent while 6 percent view him in an unfavorable light while 71 percent haven’t heard enough about him. Grayson is the most well-known of the group but 62 percent haven’t heard enough about him to have an opinion while 21 percent see him as favorable and 16 percent see him as unfavorable. 

The Republicans are even more unknown. Despite holding statewide office, 77 percent of those surveyed haven’t heard enough about Lopez-Cantera while 12 percent see him as favorable and 10 percent view him unfavorably. DeSantis is the least known candidate with 81 percent saying they haven’t heard enough about him while 11 percent see him as favorable and 7 percent view him unfavorably. 

 "The U.S. Senate candidates in Florida might want to put their pictures on milk cartons to increase their visibility,” said Peter Brown, the assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, on Monday. “U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson is the best-known, but 62 percent of voters don't know him well enough to have an opinion about him. The 'don't know' numbers for the others are even worse."

There are other candidates looking at entering the race including Republican possibilities U.S. Reps. Curt Clawson, David Jolly and Jeff Miller; former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum; and businessmen Randy Fine and Todd Wilcox. Republican strategist Roger Stone is looking at running on the Libertarian line. 

The poll of 1,147 Florida voters was taken from June 4-15 and had a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percent. 

Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN