FL: Fate of Seat Lies With Crist

A new Strategic Vision poll confirms that Gov. Charlie Crist (R-FL) is only candidate in either party who could move this race into the safe column--and that if he wants the seat, it is his for the taking. If he decides to run for another term as governor, this race will sink into complete chaos, as none of the other potential candidates have any kind of statewide name recognition.

Republican Primary with Crist: If Crist runs, he would get 54% of the Republican vote, while his close competitor--Rep. Connie Mack--would get 16%.

Republican Primary without Crist: If Crist stays out, Mack leads the pack with 21%, followed by Rep. Vern Buchanan (11%), former state House Speaker Allen Bense (8%), and another former state House Speaker Marco Rubio (5%). The most important number here is that 55% of Republicans say they are undecided.

Democratic Primary: The four candidates tested--Rep. Ron Klein, Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, Rep. Kendrick Meek, and state Sen. Dan Gelber--all have very low name recognition, and 66% of respondents say they are undecided. That said, Klein gets 12%, Meek gets 10%, Iorio gets 8%, and Gelber gets 4%.

General Election: The poll also tested 20 general election match-ups, which followed a similiar pattern. Here is a table from Campaign Diaries that makes things clearer. The Republican's number comes first.

	Crist	Mack	Buchanan	Bense	Rubio
Klein	58-24	32-27	24-28	22-27	18-29
Iorio	57-29	32-30	26-30	24-30	19-32
Meek	60-26	35-25	29-23	28-21	26-24
Gelber	58-27	33-27	23-20	27-25	17-22

Here's what Campaign Diaries gathered from these results:

• Not only does Charlie Crist have huge leads (between 28% and 34%), he is also hovering around 58% - a high number that makes it hard to see how Democrats could defeat him. (That does not mean that Democrats should dread the prospect of his candidacy. For Crist to run for Senate would create a highly competitive gubernatorial election, and that would have huge consequences for redistricting and for next decade’s House races.)

• Connie Mack looks to be a highly competitive competitor, as he beats all four Democrats - though one of the match-ups leaves him within the margin of error.

• Both Pam Iorio and Ron Klein have relatively good numbers, as they edge out three of the five Republicans - including Rep. Vern Buchanan. Pam Iorio’s numbers are particularly encouraging, since she is the only Democrat to hold Mack within the margin of error and to hold Crist under… 30%.

• Marco Rubio, Allen Bense and Dan Gelber: All are state legislators, and in a state as large as Florida it is not realistic to expect them to be known by a wide public - and it’s very hard to make much of their results.

• Kendrick Meek is the only contender to lose every single one of his match-ups, and that is a particularly dreadful result given that two of his opponents are state legislators. Compared to fellow Rep. Ron Klein, for instance, Meek underperforms by 12% against Bense and 13% against Rubio! That he even loses against Marco Rubio should be particularly worrisome to Meek.