New poll shows Donald Trump with narrow lead in Florida

Donald Trump is leading in new Florida poll
(Image credit: Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

Donald Trump basically can't win the presidential race without Florida, so his campaign got some good news on Wednesday morning in a new Bloomberg Politics poll showing him beating Hillary Clinton by 2 percentage points in the state. In a four-way race, Trump has 45 percent to Clinton's 43 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 4 percent and the Green Party's Jill Stein at 2 percent. In a two-way race, Trump leads Clinton in Florida by 1 point, 46 percent to 45 percent. Trump's edge, says J. Ann Selzer, the pollster who conducted the survey, appears to be from his 2-point lead with independent voters in a head-to-head matchup. "This race may come down to the independent vote," she said. "Right now, they tilt for Trump. By a narrow margin, they opted for Obama over Romney in 2012."

The same poll shows Sen. Marco Rubio (R) with a 10-point lead over Democratic challenger Rep. Patrick Murphy, 51 percent to 41 percent, thanks again to a lead among independents. The poll of 953 likely voters was conducted Oct. 21-24, and has an overall margin of error of ±3.2 percentage points. It is also a bit of an outlier, so far. The RealClearPolitics average of polls has Clinton up 3.1 points in Florida, and FiveThirtyEight has Clinton with a 72 percent shot at winning the state, though neither average includes this new Bloomberg Politics poll.

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Peter Weber

Peter Weber is a senior editor at TheWeek.com, and has handled the editorial night shift since the website launched in 2008. A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter has worked at Facts on File and The New York Times Magazine. He speaks Spanish and Italian and plays bass and rhythm cello in an Austin rock band. Follow him on Twitter.