In case there was any doubt as to how close Florida’s governor’s race truly is, consider this …
If you average the last five public polls: Crist +2 (Survey USA), Scott +1 (Survey USA), Scott +5 (Tampa Bay Times), Scott +2 (Mason/Dixon), and Crist +3 (PPP), that gives Scott a lead of just 0.6% — not close enough for a recount, but still damn close.
Historically, as Jason Roth and Steve Schale discussed on Twitter today, the last three top of the ticket margins in Florida have been plus 3, plus 1, and plus 1. Of the more than 41 million votes cast from 1992 to 2012 for the top of the ticket, the OVERALL margin between winner and loser is approximately 130,000 or just 0.3%.
As much as you might hear of internal or private polls showing Scott up outside of the margin of error, that just doesn’t jibe with what the law of averages and the historical perspective tell us. And that is: this race is and will be very close.