Mitch Perry
Carlos Beruff, the last man standing between Marco Rubio being renominated by the Republican Party of Florida to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate, gets crushed by the GOP incumbent in a poll conducted last week.
A survey by Gainesville-based GOP polling firm Data Targeting, done on the day before and the day of Rubio’s announcement last week he would be re-entering the race, has Rubio up big over Beruff, 73 to 6 percent.
Broken down further, 54 percent would definitely vote for Rubio, 18 percent probably vote for him, and 1 percent are leaning toward the GOP incumbent.
Breaking down Beruff’s support shows that only 2 percent would definitely vote for the Bradenton developer, 3 percent would probably vote for him, and 1 percent lean toward him.
The poll also included former combat military veteran and Orlando businessman Todd Wilcox in the mix. Only 6 percent supported him in the survey. Of course, Wilcox had yet to spend any money on television and reports indicate limited spending associated with online advertising.
Beruff has been the only candidate in the race to go up early with TV ads, but the millions spent don’t seem to have much of a dent with the Florida electorate. The poll shows that 76 percent of those surveyed have no idea who he is.
Despite the hype about 2016 being the year of the outsider, which has been the narrative due to the electoral success of Donald Trump and, to a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders, 71 percent say they believe Rubio should be re-elected to the Senate, with only 24 percent saying someone new should get the gig.
When asked in a push-poll fashion that “Marco Rubio is a career politician … breaking a promise he made to the people of Florida many times for over a year that he would not run for re-election,” just 39 percent said it would make them less likely to vote for Rubio. Seventeen percent said it would make them more likely to vote for him, and 38 percent said it made no difference.
When told Beruff gave campaign contributions to Charlie Crist, Florida Republicans angrily responded negatively in the survey, with 84 percent saying that information made them much less likely to for him.
Meanwhile, Beruff doesn’t appear to be intimidated by the herculean task in front of him. On Tuesday his campaign spokesman, Chris Hartline, sent out a statement called, “Marco Rubio by the numbers,” listing how many votes and percentage of votes he’s missed on the floor and in committees.
The poll of 606 Florida voters took place June 21 and 22, with a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percent.
