Poll shows Crist shellacking Rubio

Gov. Charlie Crist has a commanding lead over former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, according to a new poll.

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute shows Crist leading 54 percent to 23 percent among Republican voters, with 23 percent undecided or giving other answers.

Rubio is mounting a conservative challenge to Crist, the national and state party favorite, for the seat now held by Republican Mel Martinez, who has decided not to run in 2010.

Rubio's campaign did not have any public comment on the poll, but Rubio sent a message over his Twitter account saying the poll includes reasons for him to be optimistic.

"Early polls mean nothing ... but new Q poll today shows 72% of GOP voters who know me will vote for me," Rubio wrote.

That referred to another poll finding that only 32 percent of Republicans in the poll knew enough about Rubio to express an opinion of him. Most of those 32 percent apparently picked him over Crist.

Rubio also referred to Terry McAuliffe, former national Democratic Party chairman, who lost Tuesday's Democratic primary for governor of Virginia after being the leader in early polls.

Rubio supporters also noted that his tally increased from 6 percent in the same poll in January.

In the Democratic primary for the Senate seat, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami led with 18 percent of voters to 12 percent for U.S. Rep. Corinne Brown of Jacksonville, who has not decided whether to run.

Rep. Ron Klein of Boca Raton got 8 percent, and 61 percent of the sample of Democratic voters said "don't know" or gave other answers. The poll did not include an announced candidate, North Miami Mayor Kevin Burns.

The poll of 1,245 Florida voters was conducted June 2 through 7 and has a 2.8-point error margin.

Questions asked only of voters in one party have a larger margin of error.