Quinnipiac University, one of the top pollsters in the country, has issued what is probably its last poll before Florida's August 24 primary election, and, not surprisingly to this reporter, has "the insiders," Kendrick Meek in the U.S. Senate race and Bill McCollum in the GOP Governor's race, taking back the lead in their respective races.
In the Senate race, Meek now leads Jeff Greene 35%-28% among likely voters, with former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre at 6%. That's a reversal from a month ago in this same survey, where Greene was up 10% (leading us to write that Meek was officially in trouble).
In the governor's race, Bill McCollum is now up 44%-35%, a reversal from a month ago when Scott led McCollum by double digits.
Political writers and bloggers throughout the state in the past week have written about the contradictory focus of some of these most recent polls, but truly, there's only been one real outlier. That was the Ipsos poll done for the St. Petersburg Times/Miami Herald over the weekend, which showed both Rick Scott & Jeff Green still up. Of course, the pollster for that survey admitted that it included registered voters, not likely voters, a key distinction, since again in the past week, other polls (such as Mason Dixon and now Quinnipiac), have shown Meek and McCollum back on top.
But let's not get carried away here, as there is great volatility in the body politic; 29% of Democrats remain undecided with less than a week to go, and 19% of Republicans feel the same way about their race.
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.