Nearly Half Of Florida Voters Want Bush, Rubio To Quit Race

Nearly half of Florida voters think their state’s former governor — Jeb Bush — and current Senator — Marco Rubio — should drop out of the presidential race, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey.

According to the PPP Florida poll, just 40 percent of Florida voters — both Republican and Democrats — think Bush should stay in the race, and 47 percent think the former governor should stand down.

Meanwhile, 42 percent said Rubio should stay in the race while 48 percent said he should end his campaign.

Among Republican primary voters, the Florida duo also trail frontrunner Donald Trump, who leads the GOP field in Florida with 28 percent of the vote, and Ben Carson who comes in second at 17 percent. Bush has 13 percent of the GOP vote in Florida and Rubio has the fourth place slot with 10 percent of the vote.

The rest of the GOP primary field followed. Ted Cruz with 9 percent, Carly Fiorina at 7 percent, and John Kasich at 5 percent. At the bottom of the pile were Mike Huckabee at 3 percent, Chris Christie and Scott Walker at 2 percent, Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum with 1 percent. Jim Gilmore, Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Rand Paul earned less than 1 percent of the vote.

“Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio are polling well behind Donald Trump and Ben Carson with Republicans even in their home state,” Dean Debnam, Public Policy Polling president, said in a statement. “And when you look at the overall Florida electorate, a plurality of voters think Bush and Rubio should just end their campaigns.”

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads the field with 55 percent. Bernie Sanders has the second place position with 18 percent followed by Joe Biden at 17 percent, 2 percent for Martin O’Malley and one percent for Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb.

“Florida provides more evidence of Hillary Clinton remaining strong for the Democratic nomination in the South even as she struggles in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Debnam added.

The PPP survey was conducted from September 11-13 and included 377 GOP primary voters and 368 Democratic primary voters. The margin of error for the total survey is +/-3.4 percent and +/- 5.1 percent for both Republican and Democratic primary voters.