Just last year Marco Rubio was dubbed the "Republican Savior." Now he's getting booed by the Tea Partiers who first helped him come to power, and that fall is reflected in several new national polls.
Over at Five Thirty Eight, Micah Cohen analyzes Rubio's latest numbers. It's not a pretty picture, but it might not yet spell doom for Rubio's potential future.
"In the four national surveys conducted in January, an average of 20 percent of Republicans said they would support Mr. Rubio for the party's nomination in 2016," writes Cohen. "That number dropped to an average of 11 percent in the four primary polls conducted in June."
What's to blame? Likely Rubio's high profile part in the Senate's recently passed immigration reform bill. While his bill was far from liberal-approved, it was also moderate enough to draw the ire of many conservative Republicans.
So far only two national polls have gauged Rubio's national favorability rate since the immigration debate, but both show deep drops among Republicans. In an ABC Poll in August he had a net favorability among Republican of 43 points. It's down to 25 points in June, a drop of 18 points. Rasmussen polls also showed a drop of 16 points between May and June.
Though, in some ways that was inevitable. When he came to office Rubio was cheered on by both establishment and Tea Party Republicans. The establishment hoped he could use his stature to get things down. Tea Partiers wanted to remain an unwavering bastion of strict far-right Republican ideals. With his work on immigration he took the "get thing done" path, and it's not a surprise some Tea Party-types now view him a bit more negatively.
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