Congresswoman Val Demmings is gearing up to give Senator Rubio a run for his money in an election race that has garnered little national attention but may turn out to be the most difficult of the two-term senator’s career.

Mr. Rubio, once a rising star in the Republican Party and a presidential aspirant in 2016, is now struggling to find his place in a party dominated by President Trump, according to the director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at University of North Florida, Michael Binder.

Mr. Binder recently released a poll that made a splash in the national press for showing the Florida agricultural commissioner, Nikki Fried, outpolling Congressman Charlie Crist in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

The same poll suggested that Ms. Demmings is leading Mr. Rubio by 48 percent to 44 percent, with seven percent of voters expressing a preference for a third candidate. With all eyes on Governor DeSantis’s re-election campaign, the numbers went largely unnoticed.

The numbers in the Senate race, however, may have been the star of the show, because while most expect Mr. DeSantis to run away with the race regardless of his opponent in November, Mr. Rubio might be staring down a dogfight.

The Sun caught up with Mr. Binder, who explained why he thinks Mr. Rubio is in for a hard-fought campaign that almost no one is talking about — yet.

The first part of the equation is that Ms. Demmings is simply an excellent candidate. Before representing Florida’s 10th district in Congress, she was the chief of Orlando’s police department. She also was widely cited as being on the short list of President Biden’s potential running mates in the 2020 election.

“She has a background that makes it hard for the traditional Republican background playbook to work,” Mr. Binder tells the Sun. “I’d go as far as to say that she is the strongest candidate Rubio has run against, and as you’ve seen across the nation, candidates matter in Senate races.”

Aside from Ms. Demmings’s qualifications, Mr. Binder says that Mr. Rubio has seen his luster dull a bit in the Trump era. Once a conservative firebrand in the Senate, he now plays second fiddle to a fellow Floridian who barely seems to know he exists.

“He’s in a tough spot right now because he’s not one of Trump’s chosen people,” Mr. Binder says. “His support is much more tepid. He doesn’t have a voice that has caught fire.”

Mr. Bider’s poll is an outlier in the field — one dominated by the Center Street political action committee at the moment. Just two days after Mr. Binder’s poll was released, the committee released a poll that found Mr. Rubio up 11 points among likely voters. 

Center Street consistently finds the senator further ahead than other pollsters. The committee’s politics are closely aligned with the Lincoln Project, and it openly seeks to challenge Mr. Trump’s dominance over the GOP.

Polls by another firm, Clarity Campaign Labs, had Ms. Demmings and Mr. Rubio tied in late July, replicating the findings of yet another firm, Change Research, in early August.

Looking at campaign finances, Mr. Rubio and Ms. Demmings have $12.5 million and $14.5 million on hand, respectively. Ms. Demmings received most of her money via direct contributions, while Mr. Rubio has received some $4.3 million that way.

Early Monday, Mr. Rubio’s campaign sent out an email asking his supporters for more money, suggesting that he fell short of his mid-month fundraising goal for August.

“My opponent is gaining momentum and I desperately need your support,” the email reads. “Please, I’m begging. Don’t look back and wish you did more.”

Mr. Binder argues that the sum of the evidence suggests that the “race is going to be very close — one of those traditional within-the-margins-of-error, tight Florida races.” 

Although he is skeptical that Ms. Demmings will maintain her lead into November, the director of the Institute of Politics at Florida State University, Hans Hassell, throws his weight behind Mr. Binder’s work.

He argues that his poll is of the sort that political observers should put in their back pocket and make note of in case the trend continues.

“It could very well be that Demmings is doing as well as it says, but I would want to see a number of polls coming out over a period of time with similar results,” he said of Mr. Binder’s poll. “You don’t discount it, but you don’t upweight it.”

As for Mr. Binder’s analysis that the race is shaping up to be very close, he seems to agree. He argues that whichever candidate appears to have a more moderate message in the voters’ eyes will have an advantage.

“It’s not inconceivable that Democrats can win a statewide race on a good year,” he tells the Sun. “To understand that this is a competitive place is a good understanding.”