The first Rasmussen poll for the Florida gubernatorial election has just been released, and it shows Republican Rick Scott with a 5% lead over Democrat Alex Sink, 41%-36%, with independent Bud Chiles getting 8%.
To say it's early in the race would be an understatement, and frankly, can't we just chill for at least the weekend before getting into more polls? Uh, no, not really, considering that the primary elections took place over many, many months, while we just have a little over nine weeks (or 67 days) until November 2nd.
The only tidbit from the memo that accompanies the poll that really stands out in this survey is this:
Seventy-two percent (72%) of those who favor Sink say they are already certain how they will vote in November. Just 55% of Scott’s voters and 36% of those who support Chiles say the same.
Meanwhile, Rick Scott and Republican party chair John Thrasher had their much anticipated get together yesterday in Fort Lauderdale, and hey, everyone's a winner!
That's because Scott apparently did say that he'd help the party financially with other GOP candidates in other races as we speculated yesterday would be what Thrasher was hoping Scott would say. This is not how it usually works, however. Most candidates are like Scott's opponent, Democrat Alex Sink, in that they are hoping to get some help from the state and national party.
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.