Rubio Approval Ratings Continue to Drop

Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) approval ratings and poll numbers continue to sink, according to two new polls released last week. 

In Florida, Public Policy Polling, a left-leaning polling organization, released a poll on Thursday that found only 43% of Floridians approved of Rubio while 53% disapproved. One year ago, 51% of Floridians approved and 33% disapproved of Rubio in the same poll. 

As the Huffington Post noted, Rubio also fell in a Quinnipiac poll of 2016 contenders that was released last week, which had him “dropping seven points in the national picture since April.”

Rubio’s poll numbers started to drop, especially among conservatives and Republicans, as soon as he decided to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform along with senators like John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Rubio was the face of an immigration bill that he helped write in the Senate, which would provide a pathway to citizenship to all of the country’s illegal immigrants. The Congressional Budget Office found that bill would reduce the wages of working class Americans while not even completely solving the illegal immigration problem. 

After the comprehensive immigration reform bill passed the Senate in June, Rubio went silent, and the Public Policy Poll showed that Rubio has the support of neither those who support a pathway to citizenship (23% support Rubio on immigration while 41% disapprove) nor those who oppose (19% support Rubio on immigration while 51% disapprove) in his home state.