By Jacob Ogles
FloridaPolitics.com
September 10, 2021
And they don’t want the GOP incumbent to run for President either.
A poll showing Gov. Ron DeSantis trailing Charlie Crist suggests Floridians have turned on the Governor regarding mask-wearing. And while voters remain unhappy with DeSantis’ performance as Florida’s Governor, they dread even more the prospect he could run for President.
If the election were held today with Crist as the Democratic nominee, the St. Petersburg Congressman would take almost 54% of votes to the Republican incumbent’s 46%, with independents breaking for Crist by a 5-percentage-point margin. That’s according to The Listener Group, a Pensacola-based outfit, which released its latest numbers Tuesday.
That’s a sizable lead outside the poll’s 3.1% margin of error, and more importantly, puts Crist well above the 50% mark. Pollsters collected responses from Sept. 3 through 5.
The same firm two weeks ago similarly found Crist up by a slightly wider 57%-43% margin.
Notably, the pollster in August also found DeSantis losing to Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, the other major Democrat in the race. But now, it finds the Governor leading Fried 52% to 48%, largely thanks to independents, who broke for Crist but against Fried, going to DeSantis by 55% to 45%.
In July, before a surge in COVID-19 infections struck the state, The Listener Group found DeSantis beating Crist 55% to 45% and Fried 60% to 39%. So it appears the incumbent’s performance correlates closely to the number of infections in the state.
But pollsters also found voters out of step with the Governor on a number of policy issues.
The enactment of a “heartbeat” bill in Texas, which has DeSantis looking at “protections for life,” instantly turned abortion into a topline issue in the race.
The Listener Group polling signals 59% of voters oppose a heartbeat bill and less than 41% support it.
On DeSantis’ plans to issue $5,000 fines to businesses with “vaccine passports,” 60% of voters similarly oppose that approach compared to 40% who support it.
There’s even more vocal exasperation at DeSantis’ attempt to withhold salaries for school officials enacting mask mandates, with near 70% opposed to such an approach. Even 60% of Republicans oppose that plan.
Overall, fewer than 41% give a favorable grade to DeSantis for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, and just over 42% give him a passing favorability rate at all. His favorability rating in the poll sank 11 points from late August.
But if there’s a job voters want DeSantis to hold less than Governor, it’s President. About 59% of Florida voters said they would vote for someone else if he were to run for Commander-in-Chief in 2024, compared to just 41% who would welcome such a run.
Throwing the BS flag on this one. It just made me laugh.
Tom, I agree with you 100%. Just where are they taking these polls?
Really makes one wonder where they take these polls. Crist was a terrible governor as a republican, then he ran as an independent and when that didn’t get him a government paycheck he switched to democrat. He has always been an opportunist. The must have found some really dumb people to poll. The reason we have such a messed up government run by fools is that the voters keep buying the BS from the politicians.
Good question regarding where did this pool come from. It is easy to fine by googling the The Listener Group. The entire data set is on their website, broken down by gender, party affiliation, and Senate district. They polled 1144 people, which is considered a valid number for polls like these. They called people on their land lines, so one needs to ask who is likely to have a landline in the first place, and second, of those, who will stay on the line to answer a survey. The answer is that usually it is an older person. I wish they had broken the data set down into age so we could see if that was true. In any case, the results were reported it accurately, and it should give DeSantis some real pause. As recent court decisions have shown, DeSantis has lately stepped over the line into unreasonableness.
https://apple.news/Aqnmt0XOASti9z84Y8OlN2Q
CNN reporting a court victory for DeSantis.
Oops, “easy to find” and “this poll.” I should’ve proofread my response a little better.
Why the FO continues to post articles such as this baffles me other than the obvious political bias which Susan claims the FO doesn’t demonstrate. Might as well start publishing the press releases from the Elect Charlie Crist or Elect Nikki Fried campaign committees.