A poll by Public Polling Policy out today shows Charlie Crist with a narrow, two-point lead over Rick Scott, 45-43 percent, with Libertarian candidate Adrian Wyllie at 8 percent. Meanwhile a poll by the relatively new firm 0ptimus shows Crist up by a point, 41-40, with Wyllie getting his biggest share of any poll this season, coming in at 13 percent.
The PPP poll also shows that by a margin of 55-37 percent, Floridians support raising the minimum wage in Florida to $10.10 from the current $7.93 an hour, prompting pollster Tom Jensen to say that Scott is "terribly out of touch with Florida voters." He makes that claim by saying that 79 percent of those surveyed said they don't believe their family could survive if they made that hourly wage, while just 68 percent said they liked orange juice.
The survey (which interviewed 5 percent more Democrats than Republicans, though respondents say they voted for Mitt Romney by a 49-46 percent margin) also showed the public supports expanding Medicaid to put more people on the insurance rolls by a 48-36 percent margin, and says by a 44-28 percent margin, they would be less likely to support a candidate "who denies that climate change is real and happening now."
Jensen was part of a conference call organized by the progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund, which unveiled a new report that takes issue with Scott for 1) failing to expand Medicaid, 2) failing to push to raise the minimum wage and 3) failing to take action on climate change.
"The fact that Governor Scott has for all practical purposes been a denier when it comes to human activity and the results of human activity on our environment and climate, that's especially important for Florida, of all the 48 lower states," said former Ohio Democratic Governor Ted Strickland, who now works for the Center for American Progress Action Fund. "Florida is going to be the most severely impacted by the failure to address climate change, so many people who live in South Florida are especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change."
Regarding the Florida Legislature's failure to expand Medicaid, which Scott said he supported in 2013 but never attempted to lobby lawmakers about, the report says his neglect is costing the the state billions of dollars in lost federal funds. It cites a joint report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute saying that expansion would bring more than $66 billion in Medicaid funding to Florida over the next 10 years — more than any other state. The report also cites another recent analysis by the Urban Institute that found that, as a consequence of the state not accepting federal Medicaid funds, $20.1 billion in Florida taxpayer money is going to fund other states that are expanding the program.
The two polls appear as absentee ballots have begun being sent out by supervisors of election throughout the state. In Hillsborough County, 150,000 such ballots were mailed out.
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2014.