Declining to attend the Republican National Convention in favor of a week-long reelection campaign swing across Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio could be emerging as a strange bedfellow for the man who defeated him in the GOP presidential nominating battle: Donald Trump.

Should he prevail in Florida's U.S. Senate primary election, Rubio will share the state's November ballot with Trump, a prospect that could boost Trump's poor showing among Hispanic and young voters.

The latest Bay News 9/News 13 exclusive statewide poll finds Trump is trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by 23 points among Florida voters aged 18-34. Among Florida Hispanics, Trump's deficit is even greater at 35 points.

Surveys show Rubio's performance with those critical voting blocs is significantly better, and his presence on the ballot could drive more Republican-leaning Hispanics and millennials to cast votes for him and, while they're at it, Trump, as well.

Although Rubio says he intends to support Trump as his party's nominee, he has had a conflicted relationship with the real estate mogul, who in an especially raucous presidential primary debate referred to the first-term senator as "Little Marco."

Rubio's conspicuous absence from Trump's Cleveland coronation has been seen as a measure of the bad blood that exists between the two men.

At a Tuesday campaign stop in Orlando, however, Rubio sought to dismiss that characterization.

"I had a plan to go to the convention but, obviously, when you look at the calendar as I did, given the decision I made at the end of June, it was important for us to be in Florida this week," Rubio said, referring to his late-stage decision to run for re-election to the Senate.

Whatever the true state of the relationship between the former rivals, their fortunes could well cross paths again in Florida, with the vanquished giving the victor a hand, albeit indirectly, in November.