Marco Rubio opens healthy lead over Val Demings in Senate race

 A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Sen. Marco Rubio with a healthy 49%-42% lead over Rep. Val Demings in Florida. Initially, Democrats thought Demings as having a shot against Sen. Rubio. As Biden's approval ratings crater in Florida (and elsewhere), Demings' chances of an underdog victory shrink.

Sen. Rubio is well-funded. Most importantly, he's articulate and he's a leader on national security issues. His leadership during last year's Cuban uprising helped him get off to a strong start to this campaign. With the Cuban-American vote being so important for success, Sen. Rubio established himself as steadfastly standing with the Cuban-American community. Aligning himself with Florida's small business community was another way to strengthen Sen. Rubio's ties to Florida's entrepreneurial Cuban-American community.

The Mason-Dixon poll was "conducted Feb. 7-10 and released Wednesday." It "showed Rubio ahead of Demings 49% to 42% among registered voters. Nine percent were undecided." That's the good news for Rep. Demings.

Rubio’s advantage in the race is built on a 10-point lead with crucial independent voters — and Biden’s political struggles. Florida is a perennial swing state but has tilted toward the Republicans since former President Donald Trump won there in 2016.

"Party registered voters appear to be dug in along partisan lines and recent elections suggest that pattern is likely to hold" in 2022, the memo from Maxon Dixon reads. "The key for Demings to pull off an upset will be the ability to attract more unaffiliated voters."

Trailing her incumbent opponent by 10 points with independent voters makes this race an uphill fight at best. This works against Rep. Demings, too:

Rubio, 50, hailing from the Miami area and running for his third term in the Senate, is considered a potential 2024 presidential candidate, having sought the White House six years ago. Demings, 64, was first elected to represent an Orlando-area House district in 2016 and was the preferred candidate to challenge Rubio among Democratic leaders.

The two candidates entered the election year with comparable war chests — Rubio had stockpiled $10.6 million and Demings had banked $8.2 million.

But Rubio’s putative Democratic challenger is likely to have trouble catching the incumbent as long as Biden’s job approval ratings are in the doldrums. The president’s disapproval in the Mason Dixon poll was 55% — climbing to 59% among both men and all voters 50 years of age and older and 61% among independents.

This isn't a campaign ad but it might as well be:

Defeating a popular incumbent is virtually impossible. Defeating a well-funded incumbent with a united base is difficult, too. Rep. Demings is fighting those odds.