Jenna Buzzacco-Foerster
The U.S. Senate election may be a few months away, but many Floridians said they don’t know who they’ll vote for come Election Day.
A new Quinnipiac University poll found no clear winners or losers in the race to replace Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate.
The survey of 1,051 self-identified registered voters found Democrat Patrick Murphy may fare better than his Democratic challenger Alan Grayson against Republicans this fall.
Five Republicans and two Democrats are vying to replace Rubio in the U.S. Senate. The Quinnipiac University survey did not look at how the candidates — many of whom are largely unknown — would fare in a primary, only in the general election.
The survey found Murphy would defeat Republican businessman Carlos Beruff, 38 percent to 32 percent; and would defeat Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera, 38 percent to 34 percent.
Murphy leads Republican businessman Todd Wilcox in a head-to-head match-up, 38 percent to 33 percent. It’s a closer race between Murphy and Rep. David Jolly. In that scenario, Murphy leads Jolly 37 percent to 34 percent. That’s well within the 3 percent margin of error.
And a race between Murphy and Rep. Ron DeSantis would essentially be tied, with Murphy at 36 percent and DeSantis at 35 percent.
But in all of those cases, more than 20 percent of voters said they didn’t know who they would vote for. In some cases, more than five percent of voters said they wouldn’t be voting in the race.
The races become too close to call if Grayson is the Democratic nominee.
In a head-to-head match-up between Grayson and Beruff, 36 percent of voters said they would support Grayson; while 35 percent picked Beruff. A match-up between Grayson and Lopez-Cantera shows voter support is split 37 percent to 37 percent for both men.
Grayson doesn’t fare as well against Jolly, Wilcox and DeSantis. Against DeSantis, Grayson would get 36 percent support compared to DeSantis’ 38 percent. A match-up between Grayson and Jolly would find Grayson with 35 percent support, compared to 37 percent support for Jolly. The same scenario plays out in a match-up between Grayson and Wilcox.
The U.S. Senate primary is Aug. 30.
