He's not even in the race yet, but former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco leads in the first major poll conducted on the 2011 race.
A poll published by a new polling group called Logos Communications that was released on Thursday showed Greco with 23%, Rose Ferlita at 19%, Jim Davis at 12%, Bob Buckhorn and Ed Turanchik at 6%, Thomas Scott at 5%, John Dingfelder at 3%, Marion Lewis at 3%, and Arthur Richardson at 1%.
Davis dropped out of the race on Thursday, and Dingfelder is not a declared candidate.
The poll, the first done by Logos since forming in Florida, surveyed 402 likely Tampa mayoral voters.
Dick Greco, was was first elected mayor of Tampa back in 1967 and then re-elected for two more terms beginning in 1995, and has been rumored for months to be getting into the race. The rumor circulating Thursday afternoon at the Downtown Republican Club of Tampa was that next week he would finally declare officially.
In notes accompanying the numbers, pollster Lowell Baker says he's surprised that Greco, a registered Democrat, gets his most support (32%) from Republicans, but frankly, Greco could be called a DINO, since in the ten years that this reporter has been in Tampa, we've seen Greco endorse George W. Bush twice for President and John McCain once. He also endorsed Charlie Crist for U.S. Senate this year, but then again, so did a lot of Democrats.
This article appears in Nov 18-24, 2010.