Peter Schorsch
The race for Florida’s open U.S. Senate seat remains pretty much undefined with the candidates largely unknown and “undecided” voters leading the polling on the Democratic and Republican sides, according to Public Policy Polling’s new poll.
A 39 percent plurality of voters are undecided, with Alan Grayson polling at 33 percent to Patrick Murphy‘s 27 percent, thanks largely to a 44/21 advantage with voters who describe themselves as “very liberal.” The Democratic hopefuls are better known than the Republicans, but Murphy still has only 48 percent name recognition and despite his high national profile even Grayson is only familiar to 55 percent of primary voters.
The general elections matchups lean slightly Democratic at this point, with Murphy generally faring better in them than Grayson. Murphy leads all the Republicans: It’s 40/35 over both DeSantis and Jolly, and 41/35 over Lopez-Cantera. Grayson slightly trails both Jolly (39/36) and DeSantis (37/36), but does lead Lopez-Cantera 41/34.
One thing that could put a wrench in the whole Senate race is if Rubio makes a late pivot to run for re-election as his Presidential campaign struggles. He would start out with pretty decent-size leads over both Murphy (46/40) and Grayson (48/38) if he ended up making that change in plans.
