Poll: Debbie Mucarsel-Powell tied with Rick Scott among Hispanic voters

Debbie Mucarsel-Powell may be Democrats best hope to keep the Senate.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell’s bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is picking up steam among Hispanic voters in Florida.

New polling shows the two are in a dead heat, with 29% support apiece.

TelavisaUnivision and Media Predict surveyed 1,155 likely Florida voters online Sept. 12-16, including 540 Hispanic voters and 615 non-Hispanic voters. Pollsters weighted the results to reflect local demographics — age, gender, education — and political affiliation.

The margin of error for Hispanics was 4.3 percentage points. For non-Hispanics, it was 4 percentage points.

While 58% of Hispanic voters are now decided on the Senate race, roughly the same share as when TelavistaUnivision polled them in early August, their alignment has shifted markedly. Last month, 32% of Hispanics said they were certain in their support of Scott, compared to 27% who said the same about Mucarsel-Powell.

Fourteen percent of Hispanic respondents to the most recent poll said they are leaning toward voting for Mucarsel-Powell, a Democrat, while 16% said they would probably cast ballots for the Republican incumbent.

After California and Texas, Florida has the most Hispanic voters in the nation, with 2.75 million representing 22% of the state’s electorate, according to L2 Data Mapping’s list of active registered voters as of mid-May. Among them, Democrats slightly outnumber Republicans, but most (more than 1 million) either have no party affiliation or are members of a third party.

Mucarsel-Powell leads Scott with Hispanic women (47%-38%) and Hispanic 35-and-older voters (46%-43%).

Scott, meanwhile, has an edge with Hispanic men (54%-38%), Hispanic under-35 voters (49%-36%), married Hispanics (46%-42%) and those with children in the household (51%-35%).

The new polling comes on the heels of another survey by Morning Consult, which found Scott could be “potentially vulnerable” in November and up just 4 points overall, within the margin of error.

The General Election is on Nov. 5.