Although Public Policy Polling will always be tagged with being "Democratic-leaning," the fact of the matter is they kicked ass with surveys in Florida and throughout the country in 2012. So everyone involved in Florida politics should not dismiss its newest poll, which shows that if the 2014 gubernatorial elections were held today, Charlie Crist would beat Alex Sink in a primary, and then dust off Rick Scott in the general election.
The survey indicates that, so far at least, the majority of Democrats queried have little to no substantive problems with Crist, a Republican his entire political career until three years ago when he went Independent to run against Marco Rubio for a U.S. Senate seat. Last month, the former Florida governor officially became a Democrat.
The survey shows Crist's favorable vs. unfavorable ranking with Democrats to be 73/17, radically improved from a 44/33 ranking in September. Fifty-two percent of those surveyed by Public Policy Polling said they'd vote for him, compared with just 18 percent for Sink, 13 percent for former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio, 4 percent for Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, and just 1 percent for the only declared Democrat in the race, South Florida state Sen. Nan Rich.
But it's the head-to-head match-ups against Florida Gov. Scott that must delight Dems at this early stage: Crist leads Scott 53-39 percent.
Is it too early to think about another Republican getting in the race? Obviously not. And even though conventional wisdom is that neither Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam or CFO Jeff Atwater would dare challenge the incumbent and his tens of millions of dollars in a primary, the question that everybody involved in state GOP politics should ask, is: why not?
This article appears in Jan 17-23, 2013.