Hillary Clinton is far outpacing Donald Trump by historic margins among likely Miami-Dade County voters, according to a new WLRN/Univision 23 poll released today.
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The poll finds that Clinton could come away with one of the widest margin of victory in Florida's biggest county for a modern presidential election. She has a 30 point lead over her Republican challenger Donald Trump, with 58 percent of Miami-Dade residents polled saying they would vote for the Democratic presidential candidate.
If that margin holds up on Election Day, it would rival the margin of victory of President Ronald Reagan in Miami-Dade County in 1984, when he beat a Democratic ticket that included the first woman nominated as vice president by a major political party, Geraldine Ferraro.
In 2012, President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney by 24 points in Miami-Dade County.
"If Hillary Clinton is winning Dade County by 30 points, Broward County by 30 or 40 points, Palm Beach County by 30 points, there aren’t enough people in North Florida to counteract that and so that that means she’s likely to carry Florida," said Anthony Williams, Special Projects Director for Bendixen & Amandi, the firm that conducted the poll.
Even within the traditionally-Republican Cuban voter base, Donald Trump has less than 50 percent support amongst Miami-Dade County voters.
Hillary Clinton's support among Miami-Dade voters has remained relatively consistent since the last local poll in May. Back then, 52 percent of participants in the poll said that if the elections were held that day, they would vote for Clinton. In the latest poll, this number has increased to 58 percent. Donald Trump also has experienced modest gains, 25 percent of support in May versus 28 percent of voter's intentions in October, but not enough to catch up with his rival.
The poll also showed a significant decline in the number of undecided voters: from 23 percent in May to 7 percent in October.
U.S. Senate Race
The poll also show that Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy is neck and neck with incumbent Republican Senator Marco Rubio among Miami-Dade voters.
However, this tie in Miami-Dade County may not bode well for Murphy's prospects to win at the state level.
Democrat voters are a majority of registered voters in Miami-Dade County. For every two registered with the GOP, there are three registered Democrats in the county. Democrats running for office generally aim for large margins of victory in of South Florida to offset what are traditionally more Republican votes elsewhere in the state.
"His problem is that most voters--or a large percentage of voters--in Miami-Dade County, just don’t know who he is," said Williams. "In order for him to have a chance statewide, he’s really going to need the benefit of Secretary Clinton. Without significant help from the top of the ticket, there really is no way for him to win the race."
The Miami-Dade County Local Issues poll was conducted Oct. 15 and 16, 2016 by the firmBendixen & Amandi at the request of WLRN and Univision 23. It is based on a sample of 600 Miami-Dade registered voters, who answered questions in English and Spanish. The margin of error is 3.99 percentage points.
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