Hillary Clinton continues to trounce Donald Trump in Florida, according to a poll released Thursday morning from the University of North Florida.
In a four-way contest, Clinton leads Trump by four points, taking 43 percent of the vote with likely Florida voters while Trump takes 39 percent. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson took six percent of the vote while Green Party candidate Jill Stein followed with three percent.
Nine percent of voters said they were still undecided.
In a two-way contest, Clinton’s lead became smaller. In this instance, Clinton took 46 percent while Trump took 44 percent of the vote.
The poll’s numbers have remained generally consistent in the four-way matchup, but the head-to-head numbers are much closer than UNF’s earlier polls.
"There is almost no change from our poll in early October in which Clinton led Trump by three percentage points, 41-38, in the four-way contest, but the head-to-head results have tightened considerably", said UNF political science professor and director of the school’s Public Opinion Research Lab Dr. Michael Binder.
The gamechanger, says Binder, could be a higher turnout rate for Democrats in Florida this year. Turnout out for vote-by-mail ballots and early voting has been higher this year than in previous election cycles.
“In this election Democrats are outperforming their historical norms in absentee and early voting. If this trend continues through Election Day, Clinton could expand this margin and easily win Florida,” Binder explained.
Both Clinton and Trump have made concentrated efforts to attempt to mobilize Florida voters this week, appearing throughout the state for rallies, urging voters to head to the polls.
“Make sure you get out and vote,” Trump told a crowd in Tallahassee earlier this week. “We have a thing going on that they’ve never seen before. We’re going to win and we’re going to bring back a lot of good things, including common sense to the White House.”
On Wednesday, Clinton appeared in South Florida and in Tampa, where she told voters she desperately needed their help so she could win.
“We can’t take our foot off the gas, even for a short time,” Clinton said in Lake Worth. “Every vote counts.”
In the U.S. Senate race, the poll also found U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio continuing his momentum over his Democratic opponent U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy. Rubio’s lead is 49 percent over Murphy’s 43 percent, a number which has remained unchanged since the university’s previous poll released earlier this month.
The UNF survey also had good news for supporters of a constitutional amendment to expand medical marijuana. Seventy-three percent of likely voters said they were in favor of Amendment 2, which would expand the use of medical pot to patients with “debilitating” conditions.
The UNF Public Opinion Research Lab poll of 836 likely voters falls in line with several other recent polls which show Clinton routing Trump in the Sunshine State, but the margins are getting closer as Election Day draws near.
The Florida statewide poll was conducted by the Public Opinion Research Laboratory Thursday, Oct. 20, through Oct. 25, 2016 and has a margin of error of +/-3.39 percent.
Reach reporter Allison Nielsen by email at allison@sunshinestatenews.com or follow her on Twitter: @AllisonNielsen.
