Marco Rubio, the Republican nominee for Senate in Florida, has a commanding lead over his two opponents according to a new poll of the contest out today.
Sunshine State News, a conservative-leaning Florida news site, surveyed 1,016 likely voters Sept. 1-7 and found Rubio with a double digit lead over Gov. Charlie Crist (I) and Rep. Kendrick Meek (D). The poll shows Rubio drawing 43% of the vote in the three-way contest, with Crist a distant second with 29%. Meek is close to him with 23% of the vote. The poll has a margin of error of around 3%.
Past polling has shown the race to be much closer than what SSN’s poll reports. In the TPM Poll Average, Rubio draws 36.8% of the vote, Crist 33.4% and Meek 19.9%.
Rubio’s lead in the SSN poll comes from strong support among Republicans and surprisingly high numbers among independents, which theoretically are Crist’s key to splitting the difference between Meek and Rubio and winning in November. Rubio is beating Crist among independents 38-36.
“Rubio’s lead at this stage in the race is due to his fairly broad appeal across the political spectrum, primarily among GOP voters and independents, the latter of which is what’s really hurting Crist,” SSN’s pollster told the website.
Evan McMorris-Santoro
Evan McMorris-Santoro has covered politics for TPM since 2009. Before that, he was a reporter at National Journal’s Hotline covering election 2008. He started his career covering local politics at newspapers in TN and his native NC.
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