Marco Rubio only trails Hillary Clinton among Latinos by 19 points

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last updated 7 December 2015

Hillary Clinton beats every Republican candidate in a head-to-head matchup in an MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist poll released Monday, but she beats Ben Carson by only 1 percentage point, 48 percent to 47 percent, within the poll's ±2 point margin of error. Clinton beats Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) by 3 points, 48 percent to 45 percent, but Rubio fares best against the Latino sample in the poll, with Clinton beating him by 19 points, 57 percent to 38 percent. That may not sound like much to get excited about, but President Obama beat Sen. John McCain among Latinos by 36 points in 2008 and Mitt Romney by 44 points in 2012.

Clinton beats Carson and Jeb Bush among Latinos by 26 points, tops Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) by 27 points, and crushes Donald Trump by 42 points. The Latino sample has a margin of error of ±6 points. Among all voters, Clinton beats Bush 49 percent to 44 percent, Cruz 51 percent to 44 percent, and Trump 52 percent to 41 percent. Polls this far before a general election are not worth much in terms of predictive power, but it is interesting that Republicans at this point in the race are heavily favoring Trump, followed by Cruz, with Carson falling to third place. In a CNN/ORC poll released over the weekend, "Bush is now polling at 3 percent — and dropping."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.