Quinnipiac (8/11-16, Florida voters, 7/22-27 in parentheses):
Alex Sink (D): 31 (26)
Bill McCollum (R): 29 (27)
Bud Chiles (I): 12 (14)
Undecided: 21 (27)Alex Sink (D): 33 (27)
Rick Scott (R): 29 (29)
Bud Chiles (I): 12 (14)
Undecided: 20 (26)
(MoE: ±3%)
All manner of other pollsters have given Alex Sink small leads in the gubernatorial race over the last month, thanks to the bizarre no-holds-barred civil war on the GOP side. Believe it or not, this is the first time that Quinnipiac has joined the rest in giving Sink the lead, despite that they’ve been one of the Crist-friendliest pollsters this year. Sink’s winning mostly just by standing around, smiling, and staying mud-free; she’s at 30/15 favorables, compared with 33/43 for McCollum and 28/40 for Scott among the general population.
Jeff Greene (D): 15 (17)
Marco Rubio (R): 32 (32)
Charlie Crist (I): 40 (37)
Undecided: 10 (12)Kendrick Meek (D): 16 (13)
Marco Rubio (R): 32 (33)
Charlie Crist (I): 39 (39)
Undecided: 10 (14)
(MoE: ±3%)
With the gubernatorial race having gotten so explosive, it’s actually gotten easy to forget about the Senate race (which for a brief while was the absolute marquee Senate race). Things have been decidedly low-key lately between Crist and Rubio, while Meek and Greene pound each other in the Dem primary, all to little effect in the general. Crist actually gains a little ground in this sample, more pronouncedly with Jeff Greene as the Dem candidate (although they don’t find as wide a disparity in how Crist performs against Greene as against Meek as, say, Mason-Dixon did). With Crist having had the chance to dominate the airwaves acting gubernatorial during the oil spill, he’s actually pulled his favorables back above the 50% mark, at 53/33, while Rubio’s at 35/28. (Meek is at 24/25, while Greene is pretty much in ruins, at 18/31.)
With the likelihood (seeming apparent to all but Rasmussen) that Crist goes to Washington, questions are getting louder about what he’ll do when he gets there. Matt Yglesias raises an interesting (if terrifying) specter of a scenario for 2011, wherein Crist still wouldn’t have to pick sides: 49 Democrats (or 48 + Sanders, I presume), 49 Republicans, and then Charlie Crist and Joe Lieberman in the middle, forming their own caucus (the CfL/FLfC Party?) and wielding all the control over organizing the Senate.
that Crist will know who sent him to Washington and caucus with the Democrats. Then again, the man doesn’t have that much principle in terms of his political beliefs…
Still for the Senate to get to 49 Dems, it would have to be a perfect storm. We would lose ND, AR, DE, PA, CO, CA, WI, WA, and IL (plus a Lieberman defection) and we wouldn’t pick up NH, NC, MO, KY, or OH. In short, that ain’t happening.
Given that D lean of their polls I guess that Crists real lead in the small single digits. I wonder what Rubio has been doing? All this talk about how Crist was going to start shrinking don’t seem to be panning out. I think Mason-Dixon is correct that Meek will help Rubio more than Greene would. The post D primary polls are the ones I am eagerly anticipating.
Look at that indecision…Still 20 percent undecided. Curious to see where they end up.
And hasn’t been on TV since the primary. I think its a tad bit premature to declare it “likely” that Crist goes to Washington. As you noted, the attention in this race is on the DEM side where Meek seems to be pulling away from Greene. African-American voters seem likely to stick with Meek, and national Democrats can’t disown him like they could Greene, meaning Meek won’t be as marginalized as a candidate like Schlesinger. Combine that with Rubio’s inevitable ad onslaught and either (both) candidates attacking Crist, and this race could change easily.
suggestion just made me shit a brick.
And am I the only one who thinks Rubio will still win? The polls say one thing, these polls are also being taken in August. Is Crist popular enough with the liberal-Jew vote in SoFL because that’s where I think things could slide especially in numbers.
His only path to victory was one of the Democrats emerging very triumphantly from the primary, and that just ain’t gonna happen.