Time to worry? Marco Rubio slides below 50% approval in new poll

In the Republican “red wave” of 2022, Florida’s senior Senator cruised to a General Election win with more than 57% of the vote.

Yet the latest USA Today/Suffolk University/WSVN-TV survey suggests Florida voters may be cooling on Marco Rubio roughly a quarter of the way into his third term in office.

In a phone poll of 500 likely voters conducted between Aug. 7 and Aug. 11, Rubio is below majority approval, but still above water, with 47% of respondents regarding him favorably and 40% disapproving.

Rubio’s performance should be contextualized in the professed party split of respondents, as this effectively is an R+8 survey: 42% think of themselves as Republicans, 34% Democrats and 21% are independent.

Ironically, Rubio’s worst regional performance is in his home of South Florida, the only one of four parts of the state where he’s underwater. He has 43% approval against 46% disapproval among those voters who know him best.

Meanwhile, the Senator is stronger in North Florida (55% approval, 35% disapproval), in West Florida (45% approval, 38% disapproval), and in East Florida (48% approval, 40% disapproval).

Rubio is underwater with independents, meanwhile, a metric that could be more meaningful if Republicans didn’t have a 1 million registered voter advantage over the opposition party. He’s at 50% disapproval among unaligned voters, with just 39% approval.

In better news, his strength with Republicans makes up for his weakness among Democrats. In his own party, 81% approve of the Senator, with just 8% disapproving. Among the other party, Rubio has 14% approval against 72% disapproval.

The Senator does well with every age cohort, save one.

Among voters between 35 and 49 years old, Rubio is underwater, with 41% approval and 46% disapproval.

But voters under 35 regard him favorably on a plurality basis (44% to 40%), while a majority of voters 50 years of age or older also approve of the Senator.

Turning to ethnicity, Rubio performs best with Hispanics, with whom he has 56% approval against 34% disapproval. A majority of white voters (51%) also approve of him, while he is predictably underwater with Black voters, with 17% approval and 68% disapproval.