Rubio leading Demings by 4 points in Florida Senate race: survey

Sen. Marco Rubio (R) holds a 4-point lead over Rep. Val Demings (D) in the race for Florida’s Senate seat, new polling shows. 

A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released Wednesday found Rubio ahead with 45 percent to Demings’s 41 percent. The results fall just inside the poll’s 4.4 percentage point margin of error. 

Rubio’s lead has narrowed since a similar survey in January, when he was at 49 percent, while support for Demings has stayed the same through that period, at 41 percent. 

Forty-six percent of respondents said they disapproved of Rubio’s work as senator, compared to 44 percent who said they approve of how he’s handling the job. 

More voters said they had a favorable view of Rubio than said they had a favorable view of Demings, 45 to 36 — but Rubio also pulled in more voters who said they had an unfavorable view of the candidate, 45 to 22. 

Demings, a third-term House lawmaker making a bid for the upper chamber, may struggle with name recognition. Just 1 percent of respondents said they had not heard of Rubio, while 20 percent said they hadn’t heard of Demings. 

Demings easily won her Democratic primary with little opposition, moving into a tough race with Rubio. But her party has been optimistic about her chances to unseat the incumbent. 

Rubio carries among white voters (53 percent to 35 percent) and male voters (51 percent to 36 percent). Demings is ahead among Black voters (68 percent to 14 percent). 

The poll was conducted Sept. 15-18 and surveyed 500 likely Florida general election voters. The margin of sampling error was 4.4 percentage points.