GOP Senate race in Florida: David Jolly leads field, but voters mostly unfamiliar with field

in 2017/Top Headlines by

Public Policy Polling’s new Florida Senate poll finds that the race is pretty much undefined, with the candidates largely unknown and “undecided” leading the primaries on both the Democratic and Republican sides.

On the GOP side none of the three major hopefuls who have declared their candidacies so far have even 40 percent name recognition. David Jolly and Ron DeSantis each have 37 percent name recognition, and for Carlos Lopez-Cantera it’s even lower at 31 percent. Fifty-two percent of voters say they’re undecided about who they’d want their candidate to be given those choices, with Jolly at 18 percent, DeSantis at 15 percent, and Lopez-Cantera at 14 percent.

It’s going to be a while before this race really develops and there’s definitely still room in the field for others to join.

Peter Schorsch is the President of Extensive Enterprises and is the publisher of some of Florida’s most influential new media websites, including SaintPetersBlog.com, FloridaPolitics.com, ContextFlorida.com, and Sunburn, the morning read of what’s hot in Florida politics. SaintPetersBlog has for three years running been ranked by the Washington Post as the best state-based blog in Florida. In addition to his publishing efforts, Peter is a political consultant to several of the state’s largest governmental affairs and public relations firms. Peter lives in St. Petersburg with his wife, Michelle, and their daughter, Ella.