Poll: Trump edges out Carson in Florida

Donald Trump holds a slight lead over Ben Carson among Florida GOP voters, a new poll finds.

Trump edges out the retired neurosurgeon by just over 2 points in the Sunshine State, according to the latest University of North Florida survey released Monday.

{mosads} Trump receives 21.7 percent of likely Florida Republican primary voters to Carson’s 19.3 percent.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) then takes 14.9 percent, while former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) earns 9 percent in their home state. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) rounds out the top 5 Republican White House hopefuls in Florida with 6.8 percent there.

Monday’s results also show that 20.1 percent select Rubio as their second choice for 2016, the highest of any GOP contender there. Carson received 14.9 percent, and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina gets 11.1 percent.

Bush, meanwhile, gets 10.2 percent as a back-up. Cruz follows Bush with 6.2 percent, sneaking past Trump, whom 6 percent pick as their backup choice.

The poll also found that 52.5 percent view Trump favorably versus 39.9 percent who do not. Bush, meanwhile, receives 64.9 percent favorability versus 28.8 percent unfavorable. Rubio, for his part, has a 81.8 percent favorable, 13 percent unfavorable split.

UNF conducted its latest survey via telephone calls made to 641 likely Republican presidential primary voters Oct. 8-13. It has a 3.87 percent margin of error.

The findings closely mirror the state of the GOP’s 2016 race across multiple national polls.

Trump ranks first out of 15 candidates with 23.8 percent, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. Carson then takes second with 21.3 percent, beating out Rubio’s 10.3 percent support.