Crist’s internal poll says Charlie still leads Rubio, Meek
Steve Schale’s eulogy for the Crist for Senate campaign, which he elaborated on in this post yesterday, bringing in the additional factor of where the black vote will go in November (at least 75% to Meek, accounting for up to 14% of the vote) has gotten lots of ink (even netting a lengthy response from theWeekly Standard.) Steve’s basic premise is that the share of the Democratic and Republican base votes that Crist needs in order to pull of a win in the Florida 3-way is too steep a climb, even for the best political chameleon in the business.
Schale’s premise will soon meet resistance from Camp Crist. The Reid Report and St. Petersblog have learned that the Crist campaign an internal poll in hand that shows Kendrick Meek getting no bounce out of his primary win, and Crist leading Marco Rubio by 1 point.
The statewide telephone poll of 500 likely voters (MOE 4.4%), conducted August 28-31 shows the race as follows:
Charlie Crist 35%
Marco Rubio 34%
Kendrick Meek 17%
Undecided 14%
The poll, from Frederick Polls, shows Meek and Crist splitting the Democratic vote with 37 percent apiece, Rubio holding a commanding 66 percent of Republicans to Crist’s 21 percent, but losing Independents to Crist 55% to 24%.
It shows Crist getting higher favorables than his competitors:
Crist – 60/34 overall
Rubio – 45/30 (with his popularity largely confined to Republicans)
Meek – 30/30 overall, and 51/21 among Democrats
The poll will show Rubio solid enough with Republicans that his total won’t drop, but not popular enough with Democrats and especially Independents to get much lift; and Meek damaged by the negative primary and “isolated to a portion of the Democratic vote.”
Of course, we have yet to see a public poll on this race, and it’s a pretty small sample.
It’s helpful I think at this point to review the Schale math at this point, since it’s going to be the operative math among most political thinkers in Florida because of his stature and track record. The Schale math says that Crist needs “roughly 1/3 of the partisan vote and 50% of the NPA” and:
If 33% of GOP vote for him, he needs about the same in Dem vote.
If 25% of GOP votes for him, he needs 41% of the Dem vote (by less than a point).
If 20% of GOP votes for him, he needs 50% of the Dem vote to win (by four-tenths).
If 18% of GOP votes for him, he needs 53% of the Dem vote to win (by two-tenths).
If 15% of GOP votes for him, he needs 59% of Dem vote to win (by three-tenths).
And now let’s compare that to the Crist Math in this poll:
Dem/Rep/Ind
37/21/55
That puts him in scenario two, at least according to this poll.
Read the full poll here.
