Poll: Rubio narrows Crist’s lead in GOP Senate primary race; McCollum edges Sink for governor
by George Bennett | October 21st, 2009
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- Crist: 50 percent
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- Rubio: 35 percent
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- Meek: trails Crist, edges Rubio
The latest poll shows Crist with a 50-to-35 percent edge over Rubio. It was 55-to-26 for Crist in August. Rubio is still largely unknown to half of GOP voters.
Crist beats the Democratic Senate frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami, by a 51-to-31 percent margin in the poll. Meek tops Rubio 36-to-33 percent in a hypothetical Senate matchup.
In the 2010 governor’s race, Republican Attorney General Bill McCollum has a 36-to-32 percent lead over Democratic CFO Alex Sink. McCollum has a 43-to-7 percent lead among Republicans over state Sen. Paula Dockery, a potential primary challenger.
President Obama’s approval rating in Florida is 48 percent positive and 46 percent negative in the new poll, compared to a 47/48 score in Quinnipiac’s August poll.
Crist’s job approval rating as governor is 59 percent positive and 31 percent negative. Rubio’s favorable/unfavorable score among Republicans is 44/3, with roughly half of GOP voters still not knowing enough about Rubio to have an opinion.
The poll of 1,078 Florida voters was conducted Oct. 12 through Sunday. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent for the survey of all voters and plus or minus 4.9 percent for the sample of 396 Republicans.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:01 am
go rubio you have our vote
October 21st, 2009 at 7:29 am
Just to let you know since you report on Polotics.
A new Congress in the US has formed.
There were candidates from 31 states that were elected.
This is the 2009 Continental Congress.
This has been created by citizens and voted on by citizens and bylaws set up and is totally legal.
Dan Gonzalez just got elected and is representing Florida.
People have had enough of Congress iin Washington.
You guys should interview Dan and find out what is happening around the country.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:32 am
Also there is another person that will be announcing his candidacy for the Senate seat in Florida.
And he is a strict Constitutionalist unlike these three bafoons
October 21st, 2009 at 10:24 am
One of the things preventing Rubio from taking the lead over Crist is that Rubio trails Meek in general election head-to-heads.
Many Republicans are supporting Crist because he is a sure thing in the general election.
Also, many Republicans have never heard of Rubio and so they have not yet made the comparison between Crist and Rubio.
As soon as Rubio’s ID name builds up, Crist may be in some very serious trouble.
Crist has a significant financial advantage, but will need it to counter some of the actions that he has taken over the past couple of years.
Three things are hurting Crist:
First, GOP voters elected “Chain-Gang Charlie” expecting him to be tough on crime. Yet one of his first moves was to give felons greater rights after release.
While only GOP political insiders really cared about giving felons back the right to vote, many average people on the street were concerned that Crist’s actions allowed felons to obtain occupational licenses. It essentially was viewed as giving ex-felons the ability to enter people’s homes without the homeowner knowing that a convicted felon was in their home.
The second problem Crist faces was his outward support of Obama’s stimulus package. At the time, Crist thought he could tie into Obama’s star-power given that Obama’s approval ratings were at 70%. But as Obama’s approvals have fallen and the stimulus package appears to have failed, many Republicans are well-prepared to make it a focus of the 2010 elections. And Crist put himself on the wrong side of the issue for Republicans.
Finally, Crist’s judicial appointments are causing him a significant amount of grief among his Republican base.
By creating informal panels to review judicial candidates, he opened himself to criticism from both Democrats and Republicans that he was working outside establishes processes.
By passing over Judge Alan Lawson, a well-respected jurist and darling of conservative Republicans in favor of an equally respected jurist that happened to be a registered Democrat, Crist made Republicans question how he would evaluate US Supreme Court nominees if he got to the US Senate.
This race is a long way from over, but it will be interesting.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:10 pm
[...] noted this morning, Quinnipiac University’s latest Florida poll finds former House Speaker Marco Rubio narrowing the gap from 29 points in August to 15 points now [...]
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:31 am
[...] lots of time) to catch the front runner in this race, Attorney General Bill McCollum. A recent poll showed McCollum blowing Dockery away, with the AG up by a 41% to 7% advantage. That will change [...]