Two polls released earlier today contain more comfortable news for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Let’s have a look at ’em.
Rasmussen Reports (8/17, likely voters, no trend lines):
Charlie Crist (R): 53
Marco Rubio (R): 31
Other: 5
Undecided: 11
(MoE: ±5%)
31% is the strongest showing yet for Rubio in any of the public polls released to date, but we’re still far from the point where Crist would have to breaking a sweat.
General election numbers:
Charlie Crist (R): 48
Kendrick Meek (D): 29
Other: 10
Undecided: 13Marco Rubio (R): 43
Kendrick Meek (D): 30
Other: 8
Undecided: 19
(MoE: ±3%)
The headline for Rasmussen’s piece says that Crist is beating potential Dem candidate Corrine Brown, too, but that head-to-head data is nowhere to be found. Either Rasmussen is holding out on us, or perhaps they’re making a reasonable assumption. As for the other poll…
Quinnipiac (8/12-17, registered voters, 6/2-7 in parens):
Charlie Crist (R): 55 (54)
Marco Rubio (R): 26 (23)
Undecided: 18 (21)
(MoE: ±4.6%)
Quinnipiac also tested the Democratic Senate primary, but inexplicably included Congressman Ron Klein, who passed up the race months ago, in the mix. For what it’s worth, Meek leads the pack with 18%, followed by non-candidate Klein at 12%, and Brown with 9%.
And, finally, the Governor’s race:
Alex Sink (D): 34 (38)
Bill McCollum (R): 38 (34)
Undecided: 25 (25)
(MoE: ±2.9%)
Sure, I’m not crazy about the trend, but I’ll take these numbers. For one, with Dems taking a bit of a national hit lately, the fact that McCollum hasn’t put more daylight between him and Sink is comforting. But more importantly, Sink has more room to grow: she has a 23-8 favorability rating, with 68% of voters counting themselves as not having heard enough to have an opinion on her. For McCollum, his net favorables are quite good (42-13), but that also means he’s more well-known (43% don’t enough enough about him). This one’s gonna be a real dogfight.
Quinnipiac didn’t release general election Senate numbers or Obama approvals in this release — the latter of which I’m quite interested in seeing. Rasmussen’s polling finds Obama with an ugly 42-57 approval rating in the state (with 47% strongly disapproving). I’d like to see how Quinnipiac’s approval testing stacks up, at least to see just how Republican-friendly Rassmussen’s sample is compared to other pollsters.
With regards to the Republican primary, it’s going to be a long time before judgement day here and Rubio seems to have plenty of reason to keep going, not the least of which being this poll which seems to show him gaining some ground. On our side, Meek has still got some work to do, but I think people are going to be taking a second look (and, indeed, for many Floridians, a first look) and end up being a little more impressed than they were initially. Both the senate race and the governor’s race could be affected by the looming financial crisis in Florida. As I understand it (and I don’t pretend to be an expert or the most informed person on the subject) the whole Florida budget is set for disaster and if/when it explodes next year we could see a real game changer.
Obama’s national numbers have been in the low 50s, and Florida tends to be fairly close to the national average (albeit slightly Republican leaning). No way in hell Obama has a net -17 approval in Florida.
So much for gains in Florida. I can’t see us winning either race although I do really like Sink as a candidate.
Looks more likely.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/…
Rubio is testing higher than his name rec, suggesting room to grow and significant discontent within the GOP.
Charlie Anticrist’s approvals remain solid, though down 8 points. However, note that his 66 percent approval from GOP is not much above his overall around 60.
Crist is trapped in a box of his own construction on stimulus/spending and cap and trade. He has no foot soldiers, as the county party rebellions demonstrate, while the Tea Party and Town Halls are assembling hordes of wingers who can flock to Rubio.
And Crist is sitting on a time bomb with the state budget. Taking the stimulus money just kicked the can down the road a year. Unless he resigns (and opens up a whole new line of attack for being a quitter), he’s going to face a financial meltdown for the election year budget. If he raises taxes and fees, that will be the match that sets his primary electorate on fire.
If he doesn’t, the state defaults or shuts down most services and he looks incompetent. Either way, he is screwed.
I mean come on, if progressives could take out people in our primaries like Lieberman and soon to be unemployed specter, I would hope that Redstate tards could AT LEAST remove Crist from higher office, But even if Crist isn’t nominated, it still looks like Meek would have a long way to go.