With the marathon presidential election ready to end Tuesday, a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump remaining in a virtual tie in the critical battleground state of Florida.
The poll said 46 percent of likely Florida voters support Clinton, while 45 percent support Trump, well within the poll’s margin of error. Libertarian Gary Johnson received 2 percent, while Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 1 percent.
Conducted from Thursday to Sunday, the poll also found that incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has a seven-point edge over Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy in a race that could help decide which party controls the Senate.
The numbers in the Clinton-Trump showdown were virtually identical to a Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday. The Connecticut-based university also released poll results Monday showing Clinton up by a narrow two-point margin in North Carolina, another key state in Tuesday’s election.
In comments released with the results, Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll raised the prospect of an election similar to the 2000 race, when 537 votes in Florida ultimately gave the presidency to Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.
Political analysts widely believe that Trump needs to win Florida and North Carolina to have a shot at capturing the White House.
“There is no realistic scenario under which Trump can win the White House without those two states, while Clinton might get there without them, but it’s not a road she wants to travel,” Brown said in comments released with the poll results.
Both campaigns were making eleventh-hour efforts to turn out voters, with Trump slated to appear at 11 a.m. Monday in Sarasota County. Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden was scheduled to campaign on behalf of Clinton in Tallahassee and St. Petersburg.
As of Monday morning, more than 6.4 million Floridians had already cast ballots during in-person early voting or through voting by mail, according to numbers posted by the state Division of Elections. Democrats had cast 2,558,076 of those votes, while Republicans had cast 2,470,825. No-party voters had cast 1,236,080, and third-party voters had cast 154,179.
In-person early voting ended this weekend.
In the U.S. Senate race, the Quinnipiac poll showed Rubio leading Murphy, a congressman from Jupiter, by a margin of 50 percent to 43 percent. That is similar to a six-point margin in the Quinnipiac poll last week.
“U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy is not getting the support a Democrat needs among women and non-white voters to overcome Sen. Marco Rubio’s lead among men and white voters,” Brown said.
The poll released Monday surveyed 884 likely Florida voters and had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida
palmcoaster says
Maybe I am wrong, but I firmly believe that many or most of those that do not exhibit HRC/Kaine signs on their houses or vehicles, is simply because they are concerned of the aggressiveness of the TRUMP supporters and camp instigated by the Donald.
I feel that most of our African Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans whether GOP like myself and reporter Navarro http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/07/opinions/navarro-republican-voting-for-clinton/index.html, are voting against TRUMP and to do so, Hillary is our only option. Same for the LGTB and our Americans with Disabilities and our Americans former Prisoners of War and our American families that lost their Heroes children fighting for our Freedom!.
I could go on telling myself also that other large group of Americans are voting against TRUMP and are women and all the millions of Americans that today have Health Insurance thanks to Obamacare as I know several.
I am not sure right now who will win this election today but if TRUMP does I hope he will bring back all the jobs he has promised that actually he has not been leading by example until now in his private business practice. If Clinton wins I also hope the GOP’s in congress and senate will work with her as they should other than taking our country to a stand still like they tried in this past eight years being the party of NO.
When my choices Reagan and Bush won back then, the DEMs in congress and senate worked with them without obstructionism…Is a shame that our Supreme Court is dysfunctional now with one vacancy still open just to boycott the appointment presented by our current POTUS, just because is OBAMA. I am ashamed of what my GOP party has turned into nowadays! Lets respect and abide by whoever of the two Presidential Candidates win and lets have Peace!! I can’t wait for this stressful and disgusting campaigns to be over with…
Aynne McAvoy says
Re: the sign thing. I have long said that if someone chooses their candidate by the number of signs they see for that candidate, then shame on them. Is that your notion of doing your homework on a candidate? How many signs you see for them? That is really Jr. High stuff and needs to be rethought. We are supposed to be adults here.
Anonymous says
Yes Palmcoaster you are wrong. It was the Democrats who set Republican quarters on fire. The Democrats are the radical ones.