Tonight at 7 p.m. on the same stations that broadcast last night's U.S. Senate debate from Davie (which means locally WFTS-Channel 28 in the Tampa Bay region), Alex Sink and Rick Scott will engage in their first prime debate of 2010, with a tremendous amount on the line for both candidates.
Tonight is actually the second of three debates Scott agreed to (Sink wanted several more), but the first that most Floridians who care will actually see. That's because their first debate 12 days ago on Univision was shown in many markets (such as Tampa Bay) at the extremely user un-friendly time of 11:00 p.m. on a Friday night, and was also broadcast in Spanish (though you could go to the the South Florida affiliate website to view the debate in English).
The debate is happening as Sink has slowly but surely been rising in the polls, a trend that was interrupted Wednesday with a new Rasmussen survey showing Scott up, 50%-44% – the widest gap for either candidate in the six months the pollster has been taking between the two candidates.
That bucks a 9 day trend where Sink had been leading in the poll, with the most recent showing her up, 45%-38%, according to a Suffolk University survey released on Monday.
A Sunshine News poll released Friday had Sink up by 3%, 48%=45%, a 9% swing in her favor from a similar survey two weeks earlier.
And A Public Policy Polling survey released last Wednesday had Sink up 46%-41%.
But the trend is recent, as two earlier polls taken last week by Rasmussen and Quinnipiac showed Scott up 3% and 1%, respectively (which statistically showed the race tied).
All of this makes tonight's debate critical, and it will be interesting to see and hear how the two think on their feet from tonight's panel (which will include Adam Smith of the St. Pete Times).
You can bet that Scott's charge that Sink had allowed some convicted felons to sell property insurance – a bomb he dropped at the Univision debate – will resurface.
Sink has had success in portraying Scott as a crooked businessman, and made the most of that two minute ad that ran only in Tampa Bay and Jacksonville encapsulating coverage of Scott's checkered past, but got maximum media coverage throughout the state.
Then there was this little two minute goodie of a never released video of Scott being deposed in 1995 that the Sink camp released Tuesday afternoon (See below)
One would suspect that Rick Scott might be asked about this particular deposition during tonight's debate as well.
There will be one more debate for undecided voters to assess the candidates – that takes place next Monday night at 7 p.m. on the USF Tampa campus, to be broadcast on CNN.
This article appears in Oct 14-20, 2010.