Here’s why:
(The following is an excerpt from The Miami Herald by Marc Caputo)
Rick Scott’s ‘awful’ poll numbers make Florida Republicans queasy
On Tuesday, as Scott kicked off the Legislature’s 60-day lawmaking session, he gave the annual state of the state speech, a campaign-like preview filled with job-creation statistics.
But many of Scott’s fellow Republicans were paying attention to a different set of numbers: a raft of poll data-points that make the GOP queasy because it shows Democrat Charlie Crist has broad support across Florida right now. The highlights:
• 34 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to one business interest’s statewide survey. This margin is 12 points greater than Democrat Alex Sink’s in the 2010 governor’s race. If she had earned Crist’s poll numbers in just these two counties, Sink would have won.
• 10 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in another business interest’s statewide poll.
• 8 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in two other business interests’ statewide polls.
• 7 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in a fourth business interest’s statewide poll.
• 6 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in a poll of Republican-controlled state House districts across Florida.
• 4 percentage points — the margin Crist beats Scott by in North Florida, a Republican stronghold. The number is well within the poll’s error margin. But it’s a cumulative 17-point shift in favor of Democrats compared to 2010, and Sink would have won the governor’s race with this North Florida margin.
• 2 percentage points — the margin Scott beats Crist by in a poll of Republican-controlled state Senate districts in North Florida. Again, it’s within the error margin. But again: If Sink had had this margin, she probably would have won the governor’s race.
“There’s no way to sugarcoat this: It’s awful,” said a top Florida Republican, one of a dozen who provided or confirmed with the Miami Herald the crosstabs, presentations or individual slices of the above-mentioned polls, six in all, which were taken in advance of the lawmaking session.
To read the article in its entirety, click here.
