Some very encouraging news today out of Florida:
Numbers from Progress Florida and Florida Watch show Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic challenger Val Demings tied, each with 45% support from those polled.
Demings holds even with Rubio in the polling despite remaining an unknown quantity to more than a third of Florida voters. Gauging the favorability of both candidates, pollsters from The Hub found 36% of voters have a favorable view of the Orlando Congresswoman, 30% hold an unfavorable view and 34% said they could not rate her.
Meanwhile, voters know Rubio but more dislike him than like him. Pollsters found 52% of voters hold an unfavorable view of the two-term Senator, while just 43% hold a favorable view. That leaves just 5% neutral on the Senator as he sits nine percentage points underwater.
Pollsters say they weighted results imaging a Republican electorate coming out to vote.
“Importantly, this data comes from a poll weighted to reflect what would be the most pro-Republican electorate in recent history: with registered Republicans making up 41% of the electorate and registered Democrats 37%,” reads a polling memo from pollsters Geoff Puryear and Annika Ramnath.
“For the last decade the Republican advantage has never been bigger than 2 points. By party identification the sample is 47% Republican and 44% Democrat.”
Keep your eyes on Florida:
Big vote cometh— The Senate approved its massive reconciliation bill that deals with climate change, health care and taxes on Sunday, and — as expected — Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott voted no.
On the home front— There’s the broader political question of whether the bill will help Democrats and President Joe Biden in November. But how will it play in Florida? Both sides tried hard over the weekend to make the votes on the legislation — which heads to the House next — as well as individual amendments into political cudgels.
Dumping on the bill— Scott went on CBS on Sunday where he contended that elements of the legislation, including provisions dealing with gas taxes and the Internal Revenue Service, “is not going to be popular.” Rubio, on the Senate floor, said “there isn’t a single thing in this bill that helps working people lower the price of groceries, or the price of gasoline, or the price of housing, or the price of clothes.”
Dems applaud measure— Rep. Val Demings, who is running against Rubio this year, came out in strong support of the bill, highlighting parts of the measure like those dealing with Affordable Care Act subsidies and prescription drug costs. She said it will “save Florida households thousands of dollars.” The ACA subsidies are a big deal in Florida since it has an estimated 2.7 million people enrolled in the federal health exchange.
On the offense — Democrats plan to come after Rubio due to his no vote, scheduling a conference call later on Monday to bash the senator and suggest that he bowed to pressure from pharmaceutical companies. Expect more of this to come in the days and weeks to come.
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