Most Florida Republicans remain undecided on who they want to see replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., come 2016, a new poll shows. Rubio is running for the Republican presidential nomination and has said he will not seek a second Senate term.
St. Pete Polls released a survey on behalf of Saint Petersblog on Wednesday which finds a solid majority of Florida Republicans -- 61 percent -- remain undecided on who they want to see as the Senate nominee in 2016.
A Mason-Dixon poll released earlier this week found 55 percent of Republicans undecided when former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum was left out and 45 percent undecided when he was included.
U.S. Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., takes 10 percent in the poll. Right behind him are U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera who pull 9 percent each. Businessman Todd Wilcox and U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., get 5 percent apiece.
Jolly, DeSantis, Lopez-Cantera and Wilcox are all running for the Senate. McCollum has left the door open and Miller is expected to make a final decision in August. U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., is also contemplating entering the race.
Most of the candidates are running strong in their home areas. Miller leads the field in the Pensacola market while DeSantis is out front in the Jacksonville area. Jolly does well in Tampa Bay while Lopez-Cantera runs strong in the Miami area.
The poll of 1,902 Florida Republicans was taken from July 18-28 and had a margin of error of +/- 2.2 percent.
“The poll was conducted through a Web-based email polling system,” St. Pete Polls noted. “The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents' demographics and the demographics of the active Republican primary election voter population for the state of Florida. The weighting demographics used were: race, age, gender and media market. The voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population within the state of Florida. The random sample used was made up of a sampling of registered Republican Party voters from the state of Florida.”
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
