Donald Trump Looms Over Today's Senate Primary Races in Arizona and Florida

GOP Sens. John McCain and Marco Rubio are fighting to hold on to their seats.

ByABC News
August 30, 2016, 2:17 PM

— -- The presidential primaries may be long finished now but a number of states are getting that familiar feeling today.

Florida and Arizona are holding two of the most closely watched contests, as GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and John McCain, respectively, are looking to hold on to their titles in primary challenges.

In both races, the incumbents face challenges from Republicans who have more readily embraced Donald Trump and his policies, and even though both Rubio and McCain have endorsed their party's nominee, they are not active surrogates and have criticized him in the past.

Both states will also play an important role in the general election.

The latest state poll in Florida, released by NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist, had Hillary Clinton leading 44 percent to Trump's 39 percent.

And in Arizona, Trump was leading in the latest CNN/ORC poll, which had him up 43 percent to Clinton's 38 percent. But Clinton's team is reportedly making a push in the traditionally red state.

The Clinton campaign is partly focused on determining how Latino turnout will affect the polls because, by states, Arizona has the fourth-largest Hispanic eligible voter share.

A Fight in Arizona

In McCain's case, the former Republican presidential candidate faces the first test on his fight to keep his Senate seat for a sixth term.

He's fending off a primary challenge from Trump supporter Kelli Ward in what has become a bitter primary race.

McCain is feeling the heat from both sides, with his primary challenger saying he hasn’t embraced Trump enough and his general election opponent saying he’s a carbon copy of the real estate mogul, whom McCain has endorsed.

Either way, a recent CNN poll had McCain up against Ward in the primary 55 percent to 29 percent and, beyond that, he's leading in a head-to-head matchup against Rep. Anne Kirkpatrick, too, with that poll putting McCain's hypothetical win at 52 percent to 39 percent for Kirkpatrick.

Although McCain is likely to breeze to victory today, the bruises he has sustained during the primary battle may hamper him as he seeks to fight off his likely Democratic challenger, Kirkpatrick.

Feeling Out the Race in Florida

There is no airworthy statewide primary polling available in Florida, but Rubio’s path to re-election got much easier when most of the Republican candidates bowed out of the race after he entered the GOP field.

Carlos Beruff, a wealthy developer who remains Rubio’s main challenger, has unabashedly endorsed Trump while Rubio has kept his distance from the GOP presidential nominee.

Rubio has already started attacking Rep. Patrick Murphy, apparently working under the assumption that Murphy will win the Democratic primary against Rep. Alan Grayson.

Rubio decided to run for re-election after dropping out of the presidential race with his defeat in the Florida general election primary.

Trump won the state, where he has a home, with a wide margin, winning 45.7 percent of the vote compared with Rubio's 27 percent.

Rubio, in an interview that aired on CNN today, declined to commit to serving out a full six-year Senate term if re-elected, suggesting he may consider other higher office openings.

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