Who's Florida's political golden boy? Well, based on all the fawning press and attention he's received, you might believe it's our first-time Republican Senator Marco Rubio. Well, apparently the honeymoon is coming to end. Now more Floridians disapprove of the way Rubio is handling his job than disapprove of the milquetoast Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. Which isn't to say Nelson is golden either. He's as boring as old brass.
According to Public Policy Polling, 44 percent of Floridians approve of Rubio, while 39 percent disapprove. That's the slimmest margin he's had yet.
Compare that to Nelson's latest approval/disapproval split: 40/32. Not exactly great either. The big difference between their number though is that 29 don't have an opinion on Nelson, while only 16 percent remain opinion-less on the ubiquitous Rubio.
Yes, we're totally aware this post could have written this headline as "Marco Rubio has Higher Approval Ratings than Bill Nelson," but, you know, "dog bites man" vs "man bites dog."
Plus the fact that that Rubio has a much larger devoted base of haters. So this could be seen as a warning sign about his 2016 reelection. (Remember, he was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote to begin with).
As for Nelson, his 2012 election chances seem pretty decent. He leads all his possible Republican opponents at the moment by double digits. Granted these numbers may change if one of the GOP candidates starts breaking away from the primary pack:
As for Rubio's vice presidential chances? Well, first of all he's said time and again he wouldn't accept the VP nomination, but PPP finds that only 30 percent of Floridians would be more likely to vote for the Republican ticket if he were its number 2. 36 percent say they'd be less likely to vote for the Republican ticket if it included Rubio.
Sometimes its just better being boring.
