Sink leads Scott 47-40 in new Mason-Dixon poll

Democrat Alex Sink commands a seven-point lead over GOP candidate Rick Scott in the Florida governor's race, according to a new poll that suggests the Republican is still suffering from the effects of last month's bitter primary.

Sink leads Scott 47 percent to 40 percent, outside the 4-point margin of error, the new results from Mason Dixon Polling & Research show.

Republican leaders have been racing to unite their party behind Scott since the primary, when the political newcomer beat the GOP establishment's favored candidate, state Attorney General Bill McCollum.

But Thursday's poll results
show that Sink's Democratic base remains stronger than Scott's support in the GOP. Sink, Florida's chief financial officer, has the support of 81 percent of Democratic voters.

Scott, a multimillionaire businessman, has backing from only 75 percent of Republican voters, compared
with the 85-plus percent of GOP support that Govs. Charlie Crist and Jeb Bush enjoyed in the last two gubernatorial elections.

"In what is likely to be a very strong year for Republican candidates throughout the country, why is Scott struggling in a GOP-leaning state like Florida?" Mason-Dixon director Brad Coker wrote. "The clear answer is he is hampered by a very high negative rating that is the result of his brutal primary race."

Dan Smith, political scientist at the University of Florida, cited McCollum's refusal since the primary to endorse Scott.

"It matters," Smith said. "We're seeing some moderate Republicans who were convinced during the primary that Rick Scott was a crook, and it was a fellow Republican who painted him with that characterization. It's going to take some hard work to convince many McCollum supporters to come back into the fold -- and that starts with Bill McCollum."

Republican support of Scott has improved markedly, however, since a mid-August, pre-primary Mason-Dixon poll showed that Scott would get only 42 percent of the GOP vote in a general election match-up against Sink.

At that time, no-party candidate Lawton "Bud" Chiles III claimed 17 percent of the GOP vote, but has since dropped out of the race and endorsed Sink.

In the latest poll, Sink leads 44 percent to 37 percent among independent voters, bucking the trend of independents siding with Republicans in the last three governor's races. Sink also fares better with women than Scott appeals to men, and claims 85 percent of the African-American vote, compared with 1 percent for Scott.

Scott holds a more modest lead among Hispanics, 46 percent to 37 percent.

Among all respondents, 47 percent viewed Scott unfavorably, compared with 30 percent viewing him favorably. .By contrast, 44 percent viewed Sink favorably; 23 percent had a negative view of her.

"Floridians clearly see that Alex Sink will bring her decades as a respected Florida business leader and a detailed plan to grow our economy, create jobs, support small businesses and improve our schools," Sink spokeswoman Kyra Jennings said.

"The only poll we care about is on election day," Scott spokesman Brian Burgess said.

Mason-Dixon conducted the statewide poll of 625 likely voters from Monday through Wednesday.

August polls had shown Sink moving ahead of both Scott and McCollum as the latter two candidates battered each other up to the Aug. 24 primary election. McCollum attacked Scott repeatedly over his tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA, a healthcare chain that had to pay $1.7 billion in the largest Medicare fraud settlement in U.S. history. McCollum also hammered Scott for refusing to release a sealed deposition taken in a doctor's now-settled lawsuit against Solantic, another healthcare company in which Scott was a primary investor.

John Thrasher, chairman of the state Republican Party, predicted it may take another week or so for Scott's Republican base to "solidify," given the "divisive" primary.

"But I'm very confident that he's going to catch up. What I'm seeing around the state, there's incredible passion among Republicans," he said. "Polls are polls. The one that counts is on Nov. 2."

That was a lesson for McCollum's supporters when he lost the primary after leading Scott in most polls -- including Mason-Dixon's, which had shown McCollum leading 45 percent to 36 percent a few days before the election.

Thursday's results suggest that Scott "will probably have to open his wallet again and go negative against Sink," Coker wrote. "Attacking a woman could be risky, particularly if he is seen as throwing the first punch. Florida voters were very put off by the highly negative GOP primary."

Scott poured $50 million of his family's money into the primary race and has not ruled out spending more on the general election. His last campaign finance report on Sept. 10 showed that he had $164,187 in cash on-hand, while Sink had over $5 million.

But both parties are also raising millions of dollars for their candidates, and Scott and Sink have political committees that can raise limitless amounts of cash.

Scott and the GOP are already running negative ads that seek to tie Sink to President Barack Obama, cast her as a pro-tax liberal and play up her part as state CFO in Florida's investment losses during the recession.

Sink's ads have been less biting, though comments from her campaign suggest that she may soon take more direct aim at Scott's background.

"Voters know Alex is focused on Florida's challenges, and they simply can't trust Rick Scott, who oversaw historic fraud and continues to try and hide from his shady record," Jennings said.

Given what negative campaigning has done to Scott's favorability ratings, Sink would be wise to stay fairly positive, Smith said.

"Bill McCollum did much of Alex Sink's dirty work for her," the political scientist said. "I'm sure we're going to see some negative ads at some point about Medicare fraud -- though probably from an aligned political committee, not from Sink herself. I think she's probably wise keeping to the high road as much as possible."