Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, running as an independent, edges Republican Marco Rubio 37 - 33 percent in the U.S. Senate race, with 17 percent for Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. If Jeff Greene gets the Democratic nod, Crist tops Rubio 40 - 33 percent with 14 percent for Greene.
In the wake of the Gulf oil spill, Florida voters oppose 51 - 42 percent increasing the amount of offshore oil drilling, a 48-point swing from the 66 - 27 percent support for drilling in an April 19 survey by the independent Quinnipiac University.
"Gov. Charlie Crist leads Marco Rubio by a nose in the Senate race. Obviously there is a long time until November, but the Governor is doing very well among independent voters, almost as well among Democrats as Meek, and better among Democrats than Greene," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "With Rubio getting two-thirds of the Republican vote, the fate of Gov. Crist, who switched from a Republican to independent six weeks ago, depends heavily on his ability to appeal to Democratic voters."
In a three way race with Meek, Crist gets 28 percent of Republicans, 37 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents. Against Rubio and Greene, Crist gets 28 percent of Republicans, 46 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of independents. By contrast, Rubio gets just 7 percent of Democrats and 26 percent of independents in the Meek matchup and 6 percent of Democrats and 25 percent of independents with Greene in the race.
"Gov. Crist's candidacy still benefits from a substantial name recognition advantage. While only 11 percent of voters say they don't know enough about Crist to have an opinion, for Rubio that number is 34 percent. And more than 69 percent don't know enough about Meek or Greene to have formed a view. Since Crist's chance of victory depends on a substantial showing among Democrats, the question is whether he'll retain his current share among them once the eventual Democratic nominee becomes better known," said Brown.
From June 1 - 7, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,133 Florida voters with a margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points. For the Chiles matchups, there were 435 registered voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.7 percent.
The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio and the nation as a public service and for research. For more data or RSS feed-
http://www.quinnipiac.edu/polling.xml, call (203) 582-5201, or follow us on Twitter.
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