Tomorrow we'll have out Florida Senate numbers looking both at the three way race and head to head contests between Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist and Rubio and Kendrick Meek.
Right now pollster.com has Meek and Crist combining for 50% with Rubio at 44%. A lot of folks have looked at those numbers in the last few weeks and concluded that if one out of Meek and Crist would just drop out their combined support would be enough to defeat Rubio.
One number in the results we'll release tomorrow points to a big problem with that theory: 48% of Floridians want Republicans in charge of the next Senate while only 43% want Democrats in charge.
So let's say Meek did drop out and Crist became the de facto Democratic candidate. Right now Crist is winning 14% of the Republican vote and is getting 23% of the vote from independents who want Republicans to control the Senate. Would he be able to hold onto those GOP leaning voters if he was more or less the Democratic nominee? No way to know for sure but I'm skeptical.
And if by some chance Crist got out, there's no doubt Meek would have trouble winning over his Republican supporters. Only 35% of the GOPers sticking with Crist say they'd choose Meek over Rubio.
Would the odds of someone other than Rubio winning this seat improve dramatically if Crist or Meek was to drop out? Absolutely- but it would not be a slam dunk by any means.
No comments:
Post a Comment