Yes, of course it’s early. Nobody is thinking about the 2016 election. Right?
Well, if you’re reading this, you have to admit you sort of care. And while the complete field of candidates running for the Florida Senate is very, very incomplete at this time (and we still don’t know if Marco Rubio will run for the seat), there are three candidates whose names are being bandied about as being possible nominees at the moment, along with the one official major party entrant — South Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy.
In a new Quinnipiac poll released on Monday, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater leads Murphy, 38-34 percent.
Atwater has yet to officially announce his candidacy, but that’s simply considered a matter of timing at this point. The pollsters also include the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Carlos Lopez-Cantera, and Orlando area Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson into the mix. They, too, have not announced officially, but are strongly considered to be potential candidates.
The poll shows that much of the state knows very little about our current lieutenant governor, or Murphy for that matter.
Seventy-eight percent of Florida voters have never heard of Lopez-Cantera (even though he ran statewide last year), while 74 percent of people haven’t heard of Murphy, which makes sense since he represents only one congressional district in South Florida.
Atwater is by far the best known of the four names in the mix here; 29 percent know who our CFO is, while 58 percent haven’t heard of him.
And Grayson? 62 percent say they haven’t heard of the liberal icon, but among those who do, he’s not doing all that well. as only 20 percent like him; 17 percent don’t.
The poll also shows that Murphy would best Lopez-Cantera today, 35-31 percent.
Lopez-Canters would barely edge out Grayson, 33-32 percent.
And Atwater would handily defeat Grayson today, 42-32 percent.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,087 Florida voters between March 17-28, with a margin of error of +/-3 percent.
