Charlie Crist will probably try to remain mum on whether, if elected Florida’s next senator, he would vote to make Harry Reid (or Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin) or Mitch McConnell the majority leader.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t be defined by this choice in the interim:

How many Republicans will stay on the Crist bandwagon if they know a vote for him is a vote for Democratic control of the Senate?

Before the holiday break, Chris Cillizza asked whether Marco Rubio had peaked too early in the Florida Senate race.

I would note that when Crist left the GOP primary at the end of April, Team Rubio stopped running television ads, as the GOP primary was now effectively over. The Rubio campaign has been off the airwaves for all of May, June, and so far in July. And you can see that Rubio leveled off right around then:

Also notice we’ve seen only three polls in this state since June 1, and the most recent one was three weeks ago. The oil spill probably created a bit of a “rally around the flag” effect for Crist, but in the weeks since, Rubio’s been hammering Crist for his praise of the federal response so far. Meanwhile, Democrat Kendrick Meek continues to appear on the side of milk cartons, under the words “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?” How important is television advertising in Florida statewide races? Elsewhere on NRO, Neal Freeman notes that $4 million in television ads — not even particularly good or persuasive television ads! — has Jeff Greene now competitive in the Democratic Senate primary.

We’ll know more about how each candidate has done in fundraising shortly, but Rubio was proving a fundraising powerhouse, and should have substantial resources to take to the airwaves this fall — once voters are tuning in to the race more closely.