Sunshine to Release Voter Survey on Barack Obama, Rick Scott, Bill Nelson, Others

In conjunction with Voter Survey Service (VSS) of Harrisburg, Pa., Sunshine State News will release the results and analyses of its first three Florida polls of the year on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

VSS is the same firm that in 2010 conducted some of the most accurate polls taken of races in the Florida primary and general election.

• Tuesday’s Sunshine State News Poll will deal with results of Florida voters’ opinion on whether President Barack Obama is doing a good job. And it will compare voters' preference for Democrat Obama versus current Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.
• Wednesday’s poll story will look at voters’ job approval of Gov. Rick Scott.
• Thursday’s story offers a snapshot of voters’ opinion – favorable or unfavorable – of Sen. Marco Rubio, Sen. Bill Nelson and former Gov. Charlie Crist.

VSS has conducted hundreds of polls in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Florida, Delaware, Maryland, and other states across the nation. It is a leading survey research and political polling firm for GOP candidates for public office and a variety of corporate clients, trade associations, public relations firms and the media.

The work it did in Florida in 2010, commissioned and reported by Sunshine State News, included polls on all races in the primaries and the general election -- some of them taken more than once, as issues and trends through the summer and fall shifted.

RealClearPolitics.com gave VSS/Sunshine State News a tip of the cap after the primary elections because its poll results, particularly in the surprise gubernatorial race, were nearly "spot on." The election ended with Bill McCollum at 43.5 percent, Rick Scott at 46.5 percent and the spread at +2.9 percent. The last VSS/Sunshine poll taken showed McCollum at 42 percent, Scott at 44 percent and the spread at +2 percent. No other polling firm came anywhere near Sunshine's result.

Jim Lee, president of VSS, has 16 years of polling experience and background as a former lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry and as a special projects coordinator for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. He has a bachelor of science degree in political science from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pa., and he's a member of both the American Association of Public Opinion Research and the American Association of Political Consultants.

"Working with Sunshine State News is fun for us," Lee said. "We began work on these questions on July 5 and finished July 7."

Lee said the Sunshine State News Poll was conducted as an automated poll; the 1,000 Floridians surveyed come from a list of voters with a solid vote history in either the 2006 or 2008 primaries. Interviewed were 420 Republicans, 420 Democrats and 160 voters who identify themselves as Independent or "something else."

The company's polling has been quoted in numerous publications and media programs, including "The Sean Hannity Show" on Fox News; MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews; the Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck radio programs; The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times; and a variety of national and state blogs that track polling, such as RealClearPolitics.com, The Hotline, The Polling Report, and others.

Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at (850) 727-0859.