The Political Whore

Researchers polled it with top Democrat Alex Sink in the race, even though she has announced she will not run, and still it wasn’t great news for Democrats. The Quinnipiac University poll released this week shows the difficulty Obama’s party will have in winning Mel Martinez’s Florida seat in 2010, as I outlined in my column this week.

Atty General Bill McCollum (courtesy myfloridalegal.com)

It was a toss-up with Sink in the race, at least against GOP Attorney General and anti-casino noodge Bill McCollum. McCollum led 36 percent-35 percent. Not exactly a great starting point for your strongest candidate — who is not even running.

The breakdown of the rest of the race:

Had Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink decided to run for the U.S. Senate, she would have had a small early lead in the Democratic field, and run almost even with the best-known GOP potential candidate, Attorney General Bill McCollum, with 35 percent for Sink and 36 percent for McCollum, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

Although McCollum holds a wide lead in name recognition among the GOP candidates, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, son of the former senator with the same name, runs closely to him in a trial heat of GOP contenders and also is viewed very positively by the party-rank-in-file.

“No one has surfaced as a likely Democratic opponent for Gov. Charlie Crist and that’s not surprising given how well he is thought of by Floridians,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “It’s impressive at this time of national Obamamania that Gov. Crist’s favorability rating is slightly higher than that of the new President. Of course, it’s still more than 21 months until the 2010 election, but Charlie Crist looks like a very strong candidate for re-election.”

Here is how they stand today (a fairly meaningless exercise, I admit, except for ammo in early fundraising) on the Democratic side:

The decision by CFO Sink to walk away from the Senate race leaves a wide open scramble for the Democrat nomination. Because the survey was in the field when she announced her decision not to run, she was left on the list from which respondents were asked to choose for the rest of the polling. In a trial heat among Democratic candidates, she gets 15 percent, while U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek has 13 percent, followed by U.S. Rep. Ron Klein at 9 percent, U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd with 8 percent and State Sen. Dan Gelber at 1 percent. Even with a ballot that includes Sink, 54 percent of registered Democrats say they do not have a candidate.

And on the GOP side of things:

In the Republican trial heat, McCollum gets 22 percent to Mack’s 21 percent, with 10 percent for U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, 6 percent for former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, 2 percent for former Florida House Speaker Allan Bense, and 40 percent undecided. Republican voters’ favorability ratings of the candidates are:

* McCollum: 40 – 14 percent favorable, with 44 percent who don’t know enough to form an opinion;
* Mack: 37 – 12 percent favorable, with 51 percent no opinion;
* Buchanan: 18 – 9 percent favorable, with 72 percent no opinion;
* Rubio: 13 – 17 percent favorable, with 69 percent no opinion.

“Connie Mack does surprisingly well. Whether that’s because voters know about him and like him for himself, still confuse him with his father or figure that he’ll be like his father if elected is not clear, and frankly probably won’t be for some time. But clearly his name is a big benefit,” said Brown.

Here’s the full poll in MS Word format.

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