With Election Day a little more than two weeks away, several new polls in Florida leave the outcome of the Senate and gubernatorial races highly uncertain. A CNN survey from this past weekend gave Democratic senator Bill Nelson a five-point lead, ahead of Governor Rick Scott 50-45 percent.
Meanwhile, this morning, Quinnipiac released its own poll of the race, putting Nelson ahead of the GOP governor 53-46 percent among likely voters, with only 2 percent undecided. The poll found that 60 percent of independent voters say they support Nelson, while only 38 percent say they support Scott.
These two surveys give the incumbent Democrat the biggest advantage he’s had in the contest since mid September, when another Quinnipiac poll put him ahead of Scott by seven points.
A new survey out today from St. Pete Polls, however, offered a different forecast. The poll surveyed 1,575 likely voters over this past weekend and found that Scott had a narrow advantage, with 49 percent support to Nelson’s 48 percent.
These three new polls are an excellent case study in the reality that survey data can only tell observers so much about a race — and they can’t be expected to predict outcomes with certainty. Even so, the new polling from CNN and Quinnipiac is in marked contrast to the polls from the last few weeks, which seemed to suggest a narrowing race.
The CNN poll indicated that Democratic mayor of Tallahassee Andrew Gillum leads Representative Ron DeSantis in the Florida gubernatorial race 54-42 percent, while St. Pete Polls showed a much narrower lead, putting Gillum ahead of DeSantis 47-46 percent.