Florida 2010 Senate candidates, Crist, Rubio and Meek.By Joy-Ann “Joy” Reid’s
I always feel I have to state this, but I don’t much care for Rasmussen polls. No one really knows how their sampling is done, and they tend to function more as a numeric Frank Luntz than a truly objective polling outfit. That said, they’re first out of the box with a poll on the Florida Senate race including Charlie Crist as a genuine independent candidate, and the poll (not unexpectedly given the amount of news coverage his split with the GOP has received) has good new for the governor. Crist leads the three-way Senate race by four points over Marco Rubio, 38 percent to 34 percent, with Kendrick Meek a distant third at 17 percent, and 11 percent undecided.
A few reasons to look at the poll with a bit of skepticism: the small sample size (just 500 people polled on a single day, May 3rd) and the relatively high 4.5% margin of era, not to mention the marked change from a poll Rasmussen conducted just two weeks ago:
Two weeks ago, before Crist announced his decision to run as an independent candidate, Rubio held a seven point advantage in the race.
Since then, Crist has gained eight (8) percentage points in the poll while Rubio and Meek have each dropped three (3) points. It remains to be seen if this is a temporary bounce or a lasting change in the race.
Change in the race: May 3, 2010 April 21, 2010
Marcus Rubio (R) 34% 37%
Kendrick Meek (D) 17% 22%
Charlie Crist (I) 38% 30%
Not sure 11% 11%
But, and this is a big “but” (no pun intended…) robopolls like this are a good way to measure intensity, meaning that people who are more passionate about the subject matter are more likely to sit through the recorded prompts. So in that sense, this poll shows that the intensity shifting from Rubio supporters to Crist people, at least in the initial phase of excitement over his dramatic party switch. That’s something I’ve definitely seen anecdotally in the comments sections of major newspaper sites like the St. Pete Times, where you used to find almost all Rubio people commenting. but where lately, the responses are heavily weighted toward Crist people, something that began to ramp up after Crist vetoed SB6 (the teacher tenure bill.) Conversely, this poll, at least, indicates that intensity has NOT increased for the Democrat in the race, Kendrick Meek, even though just about every political analyst has said that Crist’s switch gives Meek a better shot — if not the best shot of the three — at winning. (For the record, I’m not one of those analysts. Whether it’s a two- or a three-way race, I pretty much believe that name ID wins, unless you’ve got an ‘08 Obama-style two years to catch up. And Rubio, while his ID is growing, it’s growing in a negative direction. Meek is stacking up money, and he’s running a solid campaign, but I’m not sure he has the time, or a “hook” that grabs the media narrative away from the other two candidates, the way Obama grabbed the narrative from Hillary, or Rubio grabbed it from Crist before Crist grabbed it back. But that’s just me.) It also shows Crist leeching votes from both of his rivals, with slightly more coming from Meek.
Whatever you believe about the contours of this race, at least based on this poll, just improving his odds of winning has not been enough to significantly boost intensity for Kendrick, in large part because people who would naturally gravitate toward him (I call them the “anybody but Rubio” people) have a choice — Charlie Crist — and at the moment, many of those ABR people don’t know who Meek is. That could change dramatically once Meek starts advertising, or if some new scandal or negative storyline blindsides Crist. We’ll just have to wait and see. Okay, but here comes another “but” — in this poll, Meek was only unknown to a third of respondents, not the 60 and 70 percent you’ve seen in other surveys …
