A year before Floridians go to the polls to vote for a new Governor and U.S. Senator, the St. Pete Times/Miami Herald released a series of polls this weekend that could have serious implications on how state policy evolves over the next year.
Among the most revealing: By a 47 to 40% margin, Floridians are against a government run public health care insurance option. But that sentiment is completely divided along party lines, perhaps evidence on why would be Democratic gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink is so anguished over expressing her opinion on the manner.
According to the poll:
Democratic voters were overwhelmingly in favor of the public option, 62-24 percent. But Republicans opposed it by an even bigger spread, 74-16 percent. Independent voters, who ultimately decide elections in Florida, tended to side with Republicans in opposing the public option, 46-38 percent.
CFO Sink has been ridiculed by Attorney General and potential GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum for not coming out with a position on the much discussed public option, going so far as to asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to ascertain Sink's position last week when the San Francisco Democrat was in Florida.
Another major result in the survey that also splits along party lines but has heavy Republican support is on offshore drilling.
The poll shows 54% of voters supporting drilling off Florida's coast, and 40 percent opposing it. The story accompanying the poll results reported "Republicans overwhelmingly supported drilling, independents backed it by a double-digit margin while Democrats were opposed. "
You can bet the farm that these numbers will be repeated ad nauseum in the coming months by offshore drilling proponents leading up to the legislature convening next March, in which a vote on repealing the 1990 law banning drilling off the coast will come up for a vote.
The Times/Herald/Bay News 9 poll released on Sunday highlighted the fact that, not surprisingly considering the avalanche of negative publicity (much of it self inflicted) regarding Governor Crist, that now "just" 42% consider Crist to be doing an excellent job. However, only 16% consider him to be doing a poor job.
The poll also shows Crist with a substantial lead over his challenger for the GOP nomination for Senate next year, 50 to 28%. That's a damn good lead to be owning considering all the good publicity Rubio has been generating in recent months.
The poll shows Alex Sink essentially tied with Bill McCollum in a mock match up which has a full year to develop if it actually occurs. "If" is issued here based on the possibility of Lakeland GOP Senator Paula Dockery can somehow knock off the much better financed and known McCollum, if, as rumored, she announces her candidacy for the GOP nomination this coming week.
Regardless, on these two major public policy issues, public sentiment in Florida has swung to the GOP side of things.
The Times gets a third front page story out of their poll in Monday's editions, which indicates that if state Republicans asked in this survey could vote tomorrow between Jeb Bush and Charlie Crist for Governor, the former two term Governor celebrity would squash the current incumbent, 71 to 22%.
Why does this matter: The theory goes that if Jeb decides to endorse Crist's GOP Senate opponent, Marco Rubio, it would be game over for Charlie in his Senate race. Would Bush do that though, since that could theoretically tear apart the party? He might. But endorsements only go so far. The Times/Herald/Bay News 9 poll conducted over the weekend indicates that despite all of his momentum, Rubio could benefit from some major development, considering that he's still down by 22% points.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2009.