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Poll shows Rubio within 15 points of Crist in Senate race

Associated Press file photos

Marco Rubio, left, still trails Gov. Charlie Crist in the race for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate, but is gaining ground.

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By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 21, 2009

Updated: 10/21/2009 01:11 pm

TAMPA - A new poll shows Marco Rubio cutting substantially into Gov. Charlie Crist's lead in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.

The poll by Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute shows Crist's lead in the race down to 15 points among registered Republican voters – Crist with 50 percent, Rubio at 35 percent and 14 percent undecided or giving other answers.

But the poll also shows Crist performing much better than Rubio among all voters against their likely Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek.

Crist led Meek 51-31 percent; Rubio trailed him 36-33 percent.

The same poll also shows Republican Bill McCollum narrowly ahead of Democrat Alex Sink in the Florida governor's race, 36-32 percent, with 31 percent undecided or giving other answers.

And it found President Barack Obama with a 48 percent approval rating to 46 percent disapproval in Florida, a slight improvement.

The Quinnipiac poll and other recent poll results, plus a recent uptick in Rubio's fundraising, raise the question of whether the comparatively unknown Rubio can seriously challenge the popular governor for the party's Senate nomination.

"You'd have to conclude it is a real race now, even though Crist seems unbeatable," said retired University of South Florida political scientist Darryl Paulson, a Republican and Crist supporter.

"Obviously, Crist himself believes he's in a real battle," said Paulson, citing a series of radio ads and personal appearances in which Crist has responded to Rubio's advances by emphasizing his own conservatism. "The Crist campaign is concerned about the inroads Rubio is making, and is trying to put the kibosh on them now."

The Quinnipiac poll sampled 1,078 registered voters, for a 3-point error margin. The U.S. Senate primary questions included 396 Republican voters, for a 4.9-point error margin.

Despite the small sample and error margin, it roughly fits with the results of a poll done recently but not publicly released by the Florida Chamber of Commerce. The leaked results showed Crist with a 14-point lead, 44-30 percent.

Those outcomes are a major change from polls done through the summer, in which Crist's lead over his primary competitor was up to 30 percentage points.

"Marco Rubio has awakened the Republican primary voters and this is a race now," said Marian Johnson, the chamber's political strategist.

Crist backers played down the poll's significance.

"The governor continues to hold a good, solid lead and the campaign's going very well," said Greg Truax, Crist's Hillsborough County chairman.

"There will be changes in the polls through time, but we know consistently the governor holds around 60 percent among Republicans because of a good solid record of a lower state budget, tax cuts, school rankings up and crime down."

Both polls also showed Crist with enviably high popularity and job approval ratings, though lower than some of his previous heights.

But they also showed he is better liked by the growing no-party segment of Florida's voter population than he is within his own party. Publicly released portions of the chamber's poll showed Crist with a 62 percent favorable job performance rating among all voters.

No-party voters gave him 68 percent approval; among Republicans, the approval figure was 63 percent.

In the Quinnipiac poll, 65 percent of no-party voters and 63 percent of Republicans said they have a favorable opinion of Crist.

That suggests Crist could have an easier time winning a general election than winning his party's primary, in which only registered Republicans can vote, said Paulson.

"The factors that work to his advantage in a statewide general election don't necessarily work to his advantage in a closed GOP primary," he said.

Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Burgos denied that the poll proves Rubio would be at a disadvantage in the general election.

"It would be a contest between two candidates that are largely unknown," he said. "After running against Charlie Crist's powerhouse fundraising machine, we'd welcome the opportunity to take on Kendrick Meek's even more liberal record."

Reporter William March can be reached at (813) 259-7761.

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