On RedState we’ve relentlessly warned, for months, of the potential bloodbath a Donald Trump candidacy will cause on the down ballot races. Marco Rubio, after being bested in the primary, may be beaten yet again by Donald Trump in the same election cycle:

Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy is catching up to Sen. Marco Rubio and is nearly tied with him in a new Quinnipiac University poll that suggests Donald Trump is a drag on the incumbent Republican.

Rubio has a marginal 3-point lead over Murphy, 48 percent to 45 percent, in the latest poll of likely voters. However, last month’s Quinnipiac poll showed Rubio ahead by 13 points, 50 percent to 37 percent. Factoring in the new poll’s 3-point error-margin, the Senate race is now “too close to call,” Quinnipiac said in a news release.

The cumulative 10-point shift in Murphy’s favor comes amid bad local press for the Democrat and relatively little paid media that would normally lead to such a change.

Murphy isn’t a bad candidate. He is a horrible candidate. And Rubio is a fairly popular incumbent. In any ordinary year he should be drubbing Murphy, especially as Murphy is still locked in a nasty primary fight with the noted wife-beater, Representative Alan Grayson. Instead, through no fault of his own, Rubio has seen a 13-point lead evaporate.

We are going to see that over and over with GOP incumbents running in what used to be Purple states that Trump has turned Blue.

While a high profile loss, like Rubio, will be noticed, the real damage will be done to the metric crapload of state legistlators, county council/board members, sheriffs, etc., who would have won were they not stuck on the same ticket with Cheeto Jesus.