Two polls released Thursday reveal that the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. George LeMieux remains uncertain, with a tight race at the top and a close battle for the Democratic nomination.
While recent polls show that Gov. Charlie Crist, who is running for the U.S. Senate without party affiliation, has built a lead over likely Republican candidate Marco Rubio, a poll released by Rasmussen Reports on Thursday found the race was a toss-up -- and whether Crist or Rubio is ahead depends on which Democrat is at the bottom of the poll.
The poll had Rubio ahead with 35 percent, Crist in second with 33 percent and U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek -- currently in a close primary battle with billionaire investor Jeff Greene for the Democratic nomination -- at 20 percent.
But when Meek was replaced by Greene as the Democratic nominee, Crist was ahead. The poll had Crist with 36 percent, Rubio in second with 34 percent and Greene with 19 percent.
The poll found that Crist was the only candidate in the race whose very favorable numbers outweigh the very unfavorable numbers. The poll found 24 percent of the population surveyed had a very favorable impression of Crist, while 16 percent viewed him very unfavorably.
Rubio almost broke even, being seen as very favorable by 20 percent and very unfavorable by 21 percent.
The two Democrats did not poll as strongly. Meek was seen as very favorable by 10 percent of the population surveyed but very unfavorable by 21 percent. Greene did even worse, with 9 percent viewing him as very favorable and 17 percent as very unfavorable.
The Rasmussen poll of 750 Floridians was taken on July 21 and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.
The Rasmussen poll showing the race to be tight conflicts with a survey released on Tuesday by Public Policy Polling (PPP), an outfit that usually works with Democrats, that had Crist as the clear leader in the race.
Crist placed first with 35 percent with Rubio in second with 29 percent. Meek followed as a distant third with 17 percent and Libertarian candidate Alex Snitker came in fourth at 4 percent.
When Meek was replaced by Greene, Crist’s lead expanded to 38 percent and Rubio remained at 29 percent. Like the Rasmussen poll, Greene did worse than Meek, taking only 13 percent. Snitker had 3 percent.
The PPP poll of 900 Floridians taken between July 16-18 had a margin of error of +/- 3.26 percent.
PPP offered some insight in the battle between Meek and Greene on Thursday by releasing another poll, focusing on the Democratic primary battle.
Meek led the pack for the Democratic Senate nomination but Greene was well within the margin of error. In a poll of 339 Democratic primary voters, Meek had 28 percent and Greene had 25 percent. Natural health educator Glenn Burkett had 6 percent, ahead of former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre who had 4 percent. The PPP poll of the Democrats had a margin of error of +/- 5.3 percent.
Contact Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or (850) 727-0859.