AP Photo Rubio leads by 2 in internal Murphy campaign poll

MIAMI — Sen. Marco Rubio is ahead of Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy by 2 points in the U.S. Senate race, according to an internal poll of likely Florida voters that the challenger’s campaign paid for and sent to donors.

Rubio’s 47-45 percent lead is buoyed by his higher name ID, solid GOP backing and the support of Hispanics voters, according to the polling memo from Global Strategy Group.


In the presidential race, Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 46-43 percent in Florida, according to the poll of 800 likely voters. It has an error-margin of 3.5 points.

Murphy’s campaign sent the polling memo during a tough time in his campaign. Two recently released surveys from Quinnipiac University and CNN/ORC showed Rubio leading by 6 and 7 points, respectively.

The bad poll numbers for Murphy coincided with a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee decision to pull $800,000 in TV ads — money that Murphy could use at this juncture to boost his name ID, one of his biggest weaknesses in the Senate contest.

“With just over half of voters (52%) familiar with Murphy, he has a much greater opportunity to grow his vote share than Rubio (93% familiar),” the Global Strategy Group memo said. “Among voters who are already familiar with Murphy, he leads the head-to-head matchup by 19 points (58% Murphy/39% Rubio).”

The pollsters also tested negative messages about Rubio and found they resonated with voters; 59% agreed with the criticism that the senator “will say or do anything to get elected;” 60 percent agreed that Rubio “can’t be counted on to show up and get the job done” and 53 percent said he’s “controlled by special interests and wealthy donors.” The poll shows that 48 percent have an unfavorable view of Rubio, while 45 percent view him favorably.

Murphy has a slight advantage over Rubio among independents, 49-43 percent . But Rubio does better with Republican support (76-15 percent over Murphy) than Murphy does with Democrats (71-22 percent over Rubio).

A big plus for the Cuban-American Rubio is the support of Hispanics, who account for about 15 percent of the voter rolls and tend to favor Democrats statewide. The two candidates, though, are essentially tied among Hispanics, at 46-45 percent in Rubio’s favor. African-Americans support Murphy 74-18 percent over Rubio, while white voters are solidly with Rubio, 54-39 percent.

To get more-accurate Hispanic numbers, Murphy’s pollster oversampled Latinos in the poll, which was conducted from Sept. 6-11; 40 percent of the survey respondents were Democrats, 38 percent Republicans and 22 percent independents — a generally representative breakdown of turnout by party in Florida presidential elections.

