FL-18, FL-25: Garcia Close, Ileana Under 50

Carlos McDonald/Telemundo51 (9/27-10/1, likely voters):

Joe Garcia (D): 41

Mario Diaz-Balart (R-inc): 43

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Both Garcia and Diaz-Balart are scoring roughly an equal amount of support from their own parties (81% of Dems are for Garcia, and 82% of Republicans side with Diaz-Balart), but Independents are breaking for the Democrat by a 44-38 margin. While the margin of error for this one is a bit portly, it’s very close to the results we’ve seen from other pollsters. Research 2000 gave Diaz-Balart a 45-41 edge here a few days before this poll was conducted, and an earlier Bendixen poll from June showed a 44-39 race.

And here’s the scene in the 18th District, the toughest nut of the South Florida trio:

Annette Taddeo (D): 35

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-inc): 48

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±5.7%)

Taddeo has a slight edge (39-36) among Independent voters, and this is the first time that Ros-Lehtinen has been under 50 in a poll this year. Bendixen had Taddeo trailing by 27 points in June, and Research 2000 showed a 17-point Ros-Lehtinen lead last week. It’s still a tough race for Taddeo, but these numbers offer some hope. After all, some incumbents who posted bigger leads than this in late September polls ended up feeling some November Pain in 2006.

UPDATE (David): Telemundo also polled FL-21 (Raul Martinez vs. Lincoln Diaz-Balart) but hasn’t released those numbers yet. However, they have offered the traditional bonus finding: Across all three S. Fla districts, McCain leads Obama 52-39, similar to what we’ve seen in other polls.

Also note that there’s a discrepancy between the MoEs advertised by Telemundo and the sample sizes they’ve proffered. The individual district polls included just 300 respondents each, which ordinarily means an MoE of 5.7%. Telemundo for some reason has reported this as just a 5% MoE, but that can’t be correct. Similarly, for all three polls (900 respondents), the MoE is higher than the 3% they claim – more like 3.3%.