Prediction market shows Marco Rubio ‘cruising’ to re-election

Democrats say Florida is a purple state, but a key prediction market doesn’t extend that to the Senate race.

Wednesday’s “Senate Forecasts” email from the PredictIt platform, a futures market for elections, contends that Republican Marco Rubio is “cruising” to victory in November over Democrat Val Demings.

At least on the PredictIt market, that analysis is being driven by investment action. “Yes” shares on Rubio are priced at 90 cents, with a Demings “Yes” share at just 12 cents.

The analysis is pegged to a recent statewide survey of the race Jacksonville-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy conducted last week. The pollsters canvassed 800 registered and likely voters, and found that despite tens of millions of dollars spent on both sides, the race has been essentially static for months in terms of voter preference.

PredictIt notes “a similar poll in February showed Rubio leading Demings 49% to 42%. Both candidates are garnering similar levels of support amongst their parties’ voters with 86% of Republicans backing Rubio and 84% of Democrats lining up behind Demings.”

Swing voters and the most reliable voters give the market confidence: “Independent voters make up nearly a third of registered voters in Florida and the poll found 44% planning to support the incumbent Republican compared to 39% backing Demings. The poll found Rubio leading Demings 53% to 38% with voters 50 and older.”

One major problem for Demings, per PredictIt, is that despite having no plans to campaign with President Joe Biden, who reportedly had considered her as a running mate in 2020, she is linked with Biden in voters’ minds.

“Brad Coker, the CEO and managing director for Mason-Dixon, pointed to one key factor that might also be helping Rubio. He said the ‘continued unpopularity’ of President Joe Biden has ‘created headwinds’ for Demings so far. The poll found 54% of those surveyed in the state disapproved of the job Biden’s been doing.”

Just as Rubio is “cruising,” the same holds true on PredictIt for the re-election campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

“Republican contracts in both markets have wide leads and nearly the same prices. DeSantis leads Crist by 91¢ to 9¢ in the Governor’s race and Rubio leads Demings 90¢ to 12¢. Both markets have seen the Republican contracts rise over the last month — 4¢ for DeSantis and 5¢ for Rubio — which suggests the crowd believes with a little over a month to go that both incumbents are very well placed to win another term each.”