sen. marco rubio. | joe raedle/getty images but the u.s. senate race may be tightening by marc caputo 10/05/16 12:48 pm edt for the 20 th poll in a row, sen. marco rubio leads democratic challenger patrick murphy, but the race could be tightening just as florida voters have started to cast vote-by-mail ballots. rubio now has a 48-44 percent lead over murphy, according to the latest quinnipiac university survey of 545 likely florida voters. last month, quinnipiac<u+2019>s poll showed rubio leading murphy by a greater amount, 50-43 percent. story continued below <u+201c>sen. marco rubio has led in the polls for reelection since he changed his mind and decided to seek a second term. but his margin <u+2026> has never been large enough to make sen. rubio comfortable,<u+201d> peter a. brown, assistant director of the quinnipiac university poll, said in a written statement. the real clear politics average of polls pegs rubio<u+2019>s lead at 5.2 points over murphy overall. quinnipiac<u+2019>s poll has a 4.2 point error margin. the same quinnipiac poll showed hillary clinton beating donald trump by 4 points in florida <u+2014> a sign that florida voters might split the ticket and choose the democrat for the white house while keeping the republican senator. quinnipiac did not provide detailed demographic breakdowns for its polls, which it used to do. however, other surveys show rubio is carrying florida latinos, a traditionally democratic-leaning group. a telopinion poll conducted for the associated industries of florida shows that rubio is beating murphy by 48-39 percent among likely hispanic voters. rubio is also better-known than murphy. and the incumbent is better funded. rubio<u+2019>s campaign tuesday announced he raised a whopping $9.6 million in the last financial quarter <u+2014> triple the amount murphy reported. meanwhile, the democratic senatorial campaign committee has been cutting back on florida paid media buys just when murphy needs the money the most. there<u+2019>s a gender gap that also works in rubio<u+2019>s favor. men support him by 29 points while women back murphy by 19 points. rubio is also winning self-described independents, who favor him by 52-41 percent. rubio does about as well with republicans (86-6 percent over murphy) as murphy does against rubio with democrats (84-9 percent). as of wednesday morning, about 7,400 people had cast absentee ballots in florida. the pace of voting by mail will start to exponentially increase after tuesday, the deadline for all county election supervisors in the state to send out the vote-by-mail ballots. more than 2.5 million floridians have requested them. quinnipiac also surveyed three other swing states and found that ohio gop incumbent sen. rob portman was in comfortable shape, leading former gov. ted strickland by 55<u+2013>38 percent. and pennsylvania republican sen. pat toomey leads democrat katie mcginty 50<u+2013>42 percent after the two were essentially tied last month. but north carolina republican sen. richard burr is tied at 46 percent with democrat deborah ross, after leading her last month. <u+201c>it looks like the battle to control the u.s. senate will go down to the campaign<u+2019>s final days. the races in north carolina, florida and pennsylvania could decide the matter,<u+201d> brown said. updated at 1 p.m. to note the latest vote-by-mail numbers. marc caputo's must-read briefing on what's hot, crazy or shady about politics in the sunshine state.
rubio tops murphy for 20th straight poll in florida
marc caputo