Marco Rubio is probably the most hyped of the 2011 freshman Senate class, to the extent that there's already discussion about him as a possible 2012 Presidential candidate. Our latest Florida poll though suggests that it might be time for everyone to slow down a little bit on that front. Rubio is the most hyped new Senator...and he might be the most overrated too. Here's what we found:
-Rubio is not unusually popular with Florida voters- they're pretty evenly divided in their feelings about him with 43% rating him favorably and 42% unfavorably. He does have an unusual amount of appeal to Democrats, with 25% viewing him positively. But his 28/52 favorability with independents isn't a whole lot better than the 25/56 we found for new Governor Rick Scott, who's pretty universally thought to be highly unpopular.
-When it comes to the 2012 Presidential contest in the state Rubio trails Barack Obama by 8 points, a worse performance than Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Newt Gingrich posted in the poll and better only than Sarah Palin. In fairness to Rubio he's not the one pushing himself as a 2012 candidate but it does seem safe to say that if he couldn't pull his own home swing state his chances of winning the other major swing states wouldn't be too good either.
One thing frequently lost because Rubio's margin of victory in the Senate race was so impressive is that he still got less than half of the vote in an electorate that skewed heavily toward the GOP. With the Democratic vote splitting nearly evenly between Charlie Crist and Kendrick Meek, Rubio was going to win big pretty much no matter what he did and that didn't require him to be an unusually appealing candidate. Given where the race started it's still somewhat amazing and impressive that Rubio's going into the Senate but folks might want him to serve at least half a Senate term before the White House bid.
Rubio's numbers were part of our 2012 Presidential release last week.
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10 comments:
No, I think PPP is overated. Anybody but the most devoted DailyKOS Koolaid drinker can see what you guys are up to: Elevate Dems & Obama, and hammer notable Repubs as possible now that the midterm is over, and you don't have to worry about being called to account since the next election is 2 years away. Most of the time it is former Gov Palin whoi is the subject of one of your rigged polls; Today it is Sen elect Rubio.
I didn't notice what you guys were up to until you published a poll right after the midterm that showed Obama at 51% approval in VA, and a week later an independent poll showed he was 35% approval in VA. That's when I realized you guys were rigging your polls to push a "meme". The midterms are over and the next election is 2 years away, more than enough time for you to "tweak" your samples to be more realistic when the time comes. You realize you are just about the only people polling right now, so you know your polls will get a lot of publicity - Without the MSM pointing out that you are Dem & DailyKOS affiliated polling outfirm.
You may fool people for a while, but astute followers know what you guys are up to. After all, you are paid by DailyKOS so it is in your interest to "tweak" your samples so they get the desired result and keep coming back for more. Eventually, this will catch up to you; Obama & the Dems are NOT popular these days.
Obama's numbers would have probably been similar at the same stage in his senatorial career. A poll at this stage carries little, if any, relevance.
When are you polling South Carolina again? Would be interesting to see if your last poll was just an outlier or if Huckabee really is 4th in that state (he came in 4th last time you polled the state in May as you may recall). Huckabee's viability depends on his ability to win SC. He needs to win SC, become second or third in New Hampshire and then on to a victory in South Carolina I think. On the other hand, if Palin is strong in SC, that may be a sign (admittedly early) that her campaign may be able to recover from a loss in Iowa.
Hope you poll SC soon. Happy new year.
@Smooth Jazz:
PPP is one of the most accurate polls, and your favorite polls are the rigged Biasmussen polls.
@L:
At least at this stage of Obama's Senate career, presidential polls (by SUSA) had him winning Illinois (though I believe he only also won Massachusetts in the poll in question.)
We don't currently have any plans to poll SC, as you can see by the options in our readership poll, but I'm sure it'll be polled sometime in the early months of 2011 as the presidential race starts to heat up. We haven't done IA since I think June either.
New Iowa aand South Carolina polling in early '11 would be very, very, very nice to see.
Keep up the good work. : )
Don't think IA/NH polling is very useful until the campaigning starts in earnest. Perhaps better than simple horserace is "how likely are you to support" (insert candidate name) to figure out the possible floor/roofs on their support.
I wouldn't be surprised if Rubio goes the way of Bobby Jindal. After Obama's election Republicans have gone on an endless Journey to find their breath of fresh air. First Steele, Then Jindal, and now Rubio... not to Mention Joe Miller if he would have won
PPP is irrelevant & out of touch with the American people... or at least the ones that are trying to survive this economic disaster. Ronald Reagan was accurate: the government is the problem, and that includes right now! The tea party is making a difference & at least Pelosi is out on her ear!
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