The poll also provides an update on the Senate race, but nothing too different from other polls. I may come back to it at a later post but won't get into it right now. The short of it: Crist at 37, Rubio at 33, Meek at 15.
First, a look at what this poll says about Rick Scott, the uber-monied ex-HCA chief who has been spooking McCollum. This poll doesn't bother matching up Scott and McCollum, which is curious, but does a general election matchup of Scott and Sink. Scott's performance against Sink is certainly not as good as McCollum's, but he does beat the Democrat soundly. In this hypothetical matchup, he would roughly the same support of independents as Sink, and he cleans her clock in every region of the state except liberal Southeast Florida. Scott has a favorable rating of 31/22, compared to Sink's 28/14. Especially troubling, 56 percent of voters haven't heard enough about Sink to form an opinion, compared with 46 percent of voters who say the same about Scott. This is amazing considering Sink won statewide office before and served as Chief Financial Officer the past four years, whereas nobody knew who Rick Scott was two months ago. And since Scott hit the scene, every news report about him makes mention of HCA's $1.7-billion in fines, something one would expect to drive up his negatives.
Now for Chiles. The poll notes a higher margin of error on all Chiles numbers because of his recent entry into the race. But taking the numbers at face value, he could have a much bigger effect on this race than I anticipated. Despite the fact 81 percent of voters haven't formed an opinion on Chiles, the progeny of the late governor would get 19 percent of the vote in a matchup against McCollum, who would win with 33 percent, and Sink, who would get 25 percent. That places Sink closer to Chiles in the poll than to McCollum, and she doesn't want to be fighting for second.
Interestingly, this poll shows Scott as the candidate most resistant to Chiles. In a three-way matchup between himself, Sink and Chiles, he wins with 35 percent, more than McCollum would get, while Sink gets 26 percent and Chiles gets 13. An interesting note, this poll shows Scott's Republican support is actual more loyal and partisan than McCollum's, despite McCollum being the establishment candidate. Another curiosity, Sink's Republican support seems to go up when Chiles enters the race, though that matters little as he syphons a huge portion of the independent vote away.
So what lessons can be gleaned from all this?
Scott needs to be taken very seriously be everybody in this race. Alex Sink should not think a run against Scott will be a cakewalk, but I think she knows that. I was a bit surprised in the last week when she started making critical comments about Scott in the media, but that makes sense now. I would guess she has internal polling that shows he poses as much of a threat to her as Bill McCollum does.
Another lesson is that Bud Chiles will be a much greater threat than anticipated if he sticks in this race. Many predicted last week that he could take 5 percent of the vote and spoil Sink's chance of winning. Now it is clear he can do far more damage, and he has barely started his campaign. I previously called for Chiles to challenge Sink in the Democratic primary instead of spoiling the general election for Democrats. I hope this poll shows him both that he can wage a competitive primary run and that he has no chance in the general election to do anything but hand this race to the GOP.
But for Sink, I think the poll shows why getting her name in front of voters is critical right now. With full television advertising pushes already underway from McCollum and Scott, not to mention all the chatter in the Senate race, the campaign season has officially begun in the minds of Florida voters, and she can't let people make up their minds before learning more about her.
Sink has reportedly told Chiles she would spend $30 million to win this race. She needs to start right now.
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