Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
Marco Rubio’s presidential bid may have had an impact on his standings in the U.S. Senate.
On Thursday, Morning Consult, a media and survey technology company, released its latest senator approval rankings. The newest rankings grouped Rubio in the bottom 10 senators.
According to the report, Rubio’s approval rating dropped five points since November, down to 5 percent. His disapproval rating increased eight points in the same time span, to 41 percent.
The senator approval rankings were calculated from interviews with 62,288 registered voters across the country in Morning Consult’s weekly online national polling. The survey took place from Jan. 8 through April 17, and voters were identified by their zip codes. Each state’s sample, according to the report, was weighted on gender, age and race using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent population survey.
Rubio was ranked as one of the 10 senators with the highest disapproval ratings, joining Harry Reid, Orrin Hatch, John McCain and Pat Roberts. Sen. Mitch McConnell was the least-popular senator, with a 49 percent disapproval rating.
The most popular senator, according to Morning Consult’s rankings, was Sen. Bernie Sanders. Sanders had an 80 percent approval rating. That’s down slightly from a similar ranking in November, where Sanders held the top spot with an 83 percent approval ranking.
Other senators who were among the most popular in the Morning Consult rankings were Susan Collins, John Hoeven, Angus King, Patrick Leahy and Thomas Carper.
The survey found that Sen. Bill Nelson had a 52 percent approval rating and a 24 percent disapproval rating.
