New York Times Upshot/ Siena College Florida Poll:
Trump Takes Four Point Lead over Clinton 46-42%
Rubio Widens Gap, Tops Murphy by 9 Points
Loudonville, NY. Donald Trump has overcome a one point deficit in September and now leads Hillary Clinton by four points, 46-42 percent in a four-way race for Florida’s key electoral votes, according to a New York Times Upshot/Siena College Research Institute poll of likely Florida voters released today. Trump currently has the support of 46 percent of likely voters (up from 40 percent) compared to Clinton’s 42 percent (up from 41 percent) with former Governor Gary Johnson dropping to 4 percent from 9 percent and Green Party Candidate Jill Stein holding with 2 percent. Senator Marco Rubio now leads his Democratic challenger, Congressman Patrick Murphy by 51-42 percent, up from 48-42 percent six weeks ago.
“Both Trump and Clinton continue to hold tremendous leads with voters from their own party but self-identified independents have moved from leaning to Trump by two points to now giving the Republican a twelve point advantage as support for Johnson has been cut in half,” said Siena College Poll Director Don Levy. “Trump has extended his lead with men from nine points to 18 and cut into Clinton’s advantage among women, trimming it from ten to seven points. Trump leads in all areas of the state except in the vote-rich Southeast where Clinton has widened an already large lead from 23 to 28 points.
“There is not only a significant gender gap in this race, but also large racial divides,” Levy said. “Trump is up 58-29 percent (up from 51-30 percent) among white voters, while Clinton retains a commanding 81-11 percent lead with African-Americans (82-4 percent last month) and 59-30 percent (from 61-21 percent last month) among Hispanics/Latinos.
“Both candidates continue to suffer from net negative favorability ratings but while Clinton dropped a single point, Trump has improved by seven points. While many Floridians have already voted, the winner of this swing state will be decided by who succeeds in getting their remaining supporters to get to the polls,” Levy said.
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This New York Times Upshot/Siena College survey was conducted October 25-27, 2016 by telephone calls to 814 likely voters. Calls were made to a stratified weighted sample of voters from the L-2 Voter list via both land and cell phones. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. A likely-to-vote probability was computed for each respondent based on both their stated likelihood to vote as well as by virtue of the imputation of a turnout probability score based on past voting behavior applied to their specific voting history. This probability to vote was applied as a weight along with a weight that considered party registration, age, region, gender and race. This poll has a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social and cultural research primarily in NYS. SRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information, please call Don Levy at 518-783-2901. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SRI/SNY. This collaboration between New York Times Upshot and the Siena College Research Institute is dedicated to transparency and welcomes any requests for data as well as discussion of methodology.
