Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist continues to lead Florida’s U.S. Senate race thanks to significant support from Democrats, according to a poll by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling.

The July 16-18 poll of 900 voters suggests U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek would be a stronger Democratic nominee than his primary rival, billionaire Jeff Greene — but either Dem finishes a distant third behind Crist and Republican Marco Rubio.

Crist leads with 35 percent to 29 percent for Rubio and 17 percent for Meek in one hypothetical. With Greene as the nominee, Crist gets 38 percent, Rubio gets 29 percent and Greene gets 13 percent. Libertarian Alex Snitker gets 3 percent with Greene as the Democratic nominee, 4 percent if Meek is the Democrat.

“Crist has become the de facto Democratic nominee and that’s where most of his support is coming from,” pollster Tom Jensen says in a blog post accompanying the new poll release.

The poll, which as a 3.3 percent margin of error, also finds Floridians disapprove of President Obama’s performance by a 49-to-45 percent margin and disapprove of the Democratic health care overhaul by 47-to-45 percent. They oppose drilling off Florida’s coast by a 51-to-39 percent margin.

Crist gets a 44 percent job approval rating, compared to 41 percent who disapprove.

All the other major Senate candidates are under water in their approval scores.

Rubio’s favorable/unfavorable percentages are 31/46. Meek’s score is 18/27, with 55 percent still not sure enough about Meek to have an opinion even though he’s been a candidate 18 months. Greene, who got in the race April 30, has a 15/26 favorable/unfavorable score, with 60 percent not sure.

Tags: Alex Snitker

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 at 12:19 pm and is filed under 2010 campaigns, Barack Obama, Charlie Crist, George Bennett, Jeff Greene, Kendrick Meek, Marco Rubio, offshore drilling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.