TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Despite indications that voters know relatively little about the candidates, poll results released Thursday gave Democratic candidates slight leads over Republican hopefuls in next year's race to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
The Quinnipiac University poll included hypothetical contests involving Democratic candidates Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson and Republican candidates Carlos Lopez-Cantera and Ron DeSantis.
It showed Murphy leading Lopez-Cantera by a margin of 37 percent to 29 percent and leading DeSantis by a similar margin of 37 percent to 30 percent. Grayson, meanwhile, led Lopez-Cantera by a margin of 35 percent to 32 percent and led DeSantis by a margin of 37 percent to 31 percent.
Murphy, Grayson and DeSantis are members of Congress, while Lopez-Cantera is Florida's lieutenant governor.
But in each of the hypothetical match-ups, at least 26 percent of voters said they didn't know who they would support or didn't provide an answer.
The poll of 1,173 Florida voters was conducted from Sept. 25 to Monday and had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.
It did not include Republican candidates David Jolly and Todd Wilcox and Democrat Pam Keith. R
ubio has said he will not run for a second term as he pursues the Republican presidential nomination.