There's a lot of roads you can go down to explain why Rick Scott beat Bill McCollum tonight- 50 million dollars is a good start- but there ultimately may be a single simple one. Scott's attacks made McCollum unpalatable to conservative voters, and you can't win a Republican primary if conservatives don't like you.
Our final poll of the race found that 48% of conservative primary voters had an unfavorable opinion of McCollum to just 37% who saw him in a positive light. Not surprisingly given those numbers our poll gave Scott a 50-39 lead over McCollum with those voters.
Moderates did like McCollum and our numbers suggest he won today with those voters but 72% of primary voters were conservatives to only 25% moderates.
As for electability the general election numbers we'll release tomorrow show Scott polling 1 point better against Alex Sink than McCollum. So at this stage it's pretty much a wash although we'll just have to see how Scott wears with the general electorate.
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