Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running as an independent in the U.S. Senate race, leads Republican Marco Rubio 39 – 32 percent, with U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek getting 16%, if he wins the Democratic nomination, a new Quinnipiac Poll released on Thursday shows. Should Jeff Greene win the Democratic nomination, he gets 15% to Crist’s 40% and Rubio’s 32%.
Against Rubio and Meek, Crist gets 45% of the Democrats–more than Meek’s 36% – and 50% of the independent voters. Against Greene, Crist gets 51% of the Democrats to Greene’s 31%, and 48% of independent voters.
While currently Crist is getting more Democrats than Greene or Meek, it would be interesting to see whether or not he could them once there is a nominee, and also keep his 50% of independent voters.
Crist’s lead in the Senate race is based on the very favorable impression Floridians have of his performance as Governor, said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac university Polling Institute.
Meanwhile, the same poll showed, Chief Financial Officer, the Democratic nominee in the race for Governor of Florida ahead of either Republican candidate. She gets 31% to Attorney General Bill McCollum’s 29%. Sink gets 33 percent to businessman Rick Scott’s 29%. Independent candidate, Bud Chiles, in either matchup, gets 12% and about 20% of voters are undecided.
In a July 20 poll, Scott was 29% to Sink’s 27% and McCollum had 27% to Sink’s 26%. But, Sink apparently has been the beneficiary of a bruising mud-slinging ad and ground campaign that Scott and McCollum have been waging against each other, neither of whom would be worthy of holding the Governor’s office.
“Watching television must have been an enjoyable experience for Florida CFO Alex Sink over the last few months, as she watched Attorney General Bill McCollum and Rick Scott tear into each other with attack ads. Although she trailed either GOP competitor by eight or nine points in June, she has been the unintended beneficiary of the heavy volume of negative television ads her potential November opponents launched against each other,” said Brown.
But despite Sink’s edge over Scott and McCollum, a whopping 53% of Florida voters say they don’t know enough about her to form an opinion and her favorability numbers have moved slightly upwards in the last two months.
“Once the primary is over, the race for Governor will be one to define Alex Sink as a majority of Floridians don’t know enough about her to have an opinion,” Brown said.
Meanwhile, not surprisingly, McCollum, who leads the GOP primary race has seen his favorable/unfavorable ratio sink from 37 – 29 percent favorable among all registered voters to a negative 33 – 34 percent. Similarly, Scott has seen a drop off in favorability/unfavorability, from 31 – 22 percent in June to a negative 28 – 40 percent today.
The Quinnipiac University Poll surveyed 1,096 Florida voters during the period August 11-16. The poll has a margin of error of +/-3 percent points.
