Mitch Perry
A Quinnipiac survey released Thursday morning shows that Bush maintains a narrow, 2 percentage point lead over the younger U.S. senator, 20-18 percent.
Scott Walker is third with 9 percent support. No other Republican candidate is above 7 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
Quinnipiac also polled Republican voters in the swing-states of Pennsylvania and Ohio in this poll. They found that Rubio has the best overall favorability rating in the Republican pack: 75-9 percent in Florida, 54-4 percent in Ohio and 57-5 percent in Pennsylvania.
“The favorability rating and combined first- and second-choice numbers show that in this crowded pack of candidates Sen. Rubio is making strong inroads with Republican primary voters and probably is the candidate who should be most heartened by the results of this poll,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Rubio also was right on Bush’s heels in a Saint Leo University poll released last week (a poll derided by SaintPetersBlog editor/publisher Peter Schorsch). That poll showed Bush over Rubio 31-24 percent, a dramatic improvement for Rubio from March, when he trailed Bush 31-16 percent.
Bush formally announced his candidacy for president three days ago in Miami, but this poll doesn’t reflect any potential bump he may be enjoying from that rollout.
From June 4-15 Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,147 Florida voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points, including 458 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 4.6 percentage points.
