Poll: Wealthy outsiders Greene (+10) and Scott (+11) lead their Florida primaries
by George Bennett | July 29th, 2010After spending millions of dollars of their own money on TV ads and mailers over the last three months, wealthy outsiders Jeff Greene and Rick Scott lead their respective primaries for the Democratic Senate nomination and Republican gubernatorial nomination, a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters says.
In the Democratic Senate race, Palm Beach billionaire Greene has surged ahead of of U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek and holds a 33-to-23 percent lead, the poll says. The race was a virtual tie in June, with Meek up by a 29-to-27 percent margin.
Former health care executive Scott leads Attorney General Bill McCollum by a 43-to-32 percent margin in the GOP governor’s primary. Scott had a 44-to-31 percent edge in Quinnipiac’s June poll.
The primaries are Aug. 24, with early voting beginning Aug. 9.
Scott’s lead appears more solid than Greene’s, other numbers in the poll suggest.
Quinnipiac’s July 22 - 27 poll of 760 likely GOP voters has a 3.6 percent margin of error. The 782-voter sample of likely Democratic voters has a 3.5 percent margin of error.
When Republicans were asked if they’d prefer “someone with years of government experience or a government outsider,” they chose the outsider by a 54-to-28 percent margin. Scott is a first-time candidate while McCollum is a 20-year veteran of Congress and two-time U.S. Senate candidate who was elected attorney general in 2006.
Scott is viewed favorably by 39 percent of Republicans and unfavorably by 26 percent. McCollum’s favorable and unfavorable scores are both 34 percent. By a 45-to-23 percent margin, GOP voters think Scott would do a better job of rebuilding Florida’s economy.
In the Democratic race, Greene’s flurry of ads and mailers since entering the race three months ago makes voters feel they know him better than four-term Miami congressman Meek, who entered the race in early 2009. Fifty-five percent of Democrats say they don’t know enough about Meek to form an opinion, compared to 47 percent who say they don’t know Greene.
Greene is viewed favorably by 31 percent of Democrats and unfavorably by 18 percent. Meek is viewed favorably by 28 percent and unfavorably by 13 percent.
On the experience-vs.-outsider question, Democrats prefer an experienced candidate by a 44-to-35 percent margin.
Tags: Quinnipiac polls
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July 29th, 2010 at 8:07 am
Ok, everyone. Class warfare comments start in 3…2…1…GO!
July 29th, 2010 at 8:07 am
People are opening their eyes more everyday! The most comments I hear is “McCollum has been in government for thirty years and he has not mentioned one accomplishment he has made on our behalf in all that time.” What does he do for us? Also, what does the post block all Alex Sink blogs and run them by the moderator? Is this because she’s a democrat?
July 29th, 2010 at 8:53 am
Perhaps I’m splitting hairs, but when I saw the headline for this article, I thought I had missed voting. Even the wording of the lead paragraph leads me to believe that the primary is in progress, until they finally clarify in the final sentence of that paragraph that the candidate are leading in a pre-primary poll, rather than the primary election itself. Does the post have 3rd graders editing these articles?
July 29th, 2010 at 9:08 am
People are voting right now in the primary! The deadline to vote in this primary is 7PM August 24th 2010. It is called early voting! It was designed by Charlie Crist in 2008 to help Acorn and other scammers facilitate the election of his friend Obama! The longer they have to vote the more crap they can pull!
July 29th, 2010 at 9:13 am
How much experience do you need to be a congress-person? Actually none at all, you are either spending or saving other peoples money, continuing or stopping failed programs, encouraging business and prosperity or despair and government dependency…. it up to you.
July 29th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Couldn’t agree more with Opening Eyes’ comments. Pack it up, Billy Mac!! You can go back to your lobbying after August.
July 29th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Meek is a Marxist in the mold of his Marxist mother…he can’t get elected outside his little ghetto!!
We know nothing about Greene, but most anyone would have bested Meek!!
As for Bill McCollum, he was a solid conservative in Congress…who introduced legislation to thwart the Clinton DOJ from abusing its prosecutroial power by initiating all those “Medicare Fraud” charges against most every hospital billing Medicare…pure retaliation against BillaryCare being thrown out as yesterday’s garbage!!
Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, etc. all paid rather than go to court to argue the interpretation of thousands of pages of new Clinton Medicare regs…no different than Rick Scott’s former Columbia/HCA that paid the largest settlement to avoid more GOVT persecution.
Rick Scott took several hundred $$ million of his equity and left his reluctant Columbia/HCA BoD…after they refused to allow their CEO to fight! All of Bill McCollum’s public statements were supportive of Rick Scott.
Today’s Stuart paper has another demonization article against Scott for correctly ID’ing as a letter an item shown in a deposition he provided testifying as former CEO. The attempt is typical Marxist propaganda - classwarfare - a rich entrepreneur provided a deposition in discovery and that somehow connotes “guilt”…
Forget that CEO’s of large companies - 340 hospitals owned - would do perhaps one depostion every week!! Trial Lawyers love to have them - they also connote “guilt” when the CEO has no working knowledge of the event in question! Most answer correctly “based upon competent legal advice I do not possess the detailed knowledge of the event with which to base an accurate response to your question…”. This goes on for a hour or so before the charade is ended!!
Bill McCollum failed as FL AG to impact our massive Illegal Alien law enforcement dilemma — he did NOTHING??
But, McCollum’s 180 degree assualt on Rick Scott’s character assassination shows he is an entrenched politician — ala Charles Crist - saying and doing anything to remain on the public dole.
Retire Bill and support Scott for a real bold change in Florida!!