FL-Gravis: Rubio +8

[DavidB.]

lol Gravis. Rubio is currently winning this race, but he's not overperforming Trump by 12. Also a high number of undecideds.

[DavidB.]

I don't want to get my hopes up, only to be crushed.  The people of Florida have already proven once this year that they're not very bright.

Yeah, Rubio's going to lose in the end.

[DavidB.]

1. Undecideds will break for Murphy, who is not the candidate whose disapproval rating is over 40%.
2. Hispanics will end up voting for Murphy instead of Rubio by a higher margin, largely because of Trump.
3. Trump will implode even more because of new scandals, dragging Rubio down with him. See also: Joe Heck in Nevada.

Rubio is probably up by something like 4 points right now, which is nothing a new Trump scandal can't "solve". The main reason Dems pulled out of this race is because there are so many tossups where it's cheaper to invest than in Florida, and Rubio should be grateful for that. This race is a tossup and I fully expect it to go to Murphy in the end.

[DavidB.]

It's extremely rare for a candidate to overcome a polling deficit around 5 points. If you think that's going to happen, you should have more solid reasons than that.

I don't think Murphy's polling deficit will be around 5 points in the week before this election. If that's the case, I'll say it's lean R. Until then I think this remains a tossup.

David, I'm really not sure if you're trolling or not.

Absolutely not, but I admit I'm preparing myself for the worst and won't allow myself to get any hopes in order to avoid being too disappointed when FBM<3 loses. That said, I don't care much for the other races and I expect a D win in all races that are truly competitive (except for MO, but even that is a very real possibility) so I'm not being inconsistent, I just expect a D wave.

David is just being realistic.  Florida is going to be a big Hillary win, and Rubio hasnt made any attempt to distance himself from Trump.  If theres a wave coming to Florida, theres no way Rubio survives it.

I actually think his balancing act is working just fine, at least up to now. He's not being too hostile and not being too friendly to Trump, which enables him to keep aboard both deplorable voters and Hispanic voters. I think he couldn't do a better job at that. It's just that I think it won't be enough when Trump loses by a landslide. Rubio is not going to overperform Trump by more than 6. So I definitely agree with the rest of your post.