Trailing badly in recent polls, Charlie Crist’s independent candidacy for the U.S. Senate received some really positive news yesterday when a new Zogby Interactive poll showed the white-haired governor within striking distance of Republican Marco Rubio.
The poll, conducted between October 18 and October 21, showed Rubio, an early darling of the Tea Party movement, leading with 39.6 percent of the vote to 33.3 percent for Crist, who broke with his party in April to run without party affiliation. Democrat Kendrick Meek, whose candidacy has failed to gain momentum, even among hardcore members of his own party, was languishing in a distant third with a meager 18.1 percent.
The poll of 802 likely voters had a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
The Zogby survey demonstrated that Florida’s Republican-turned-independent governor continues to poll strongly among unaffiliated voters, garnering the support of 47.5 percent of the state’s independents to Rubio’s 30.2 percent, while nearly breaking even with Rep. Meek among the state’s Democratic electorate.
It’s clear that Crist, who has raised $13.3 million overall and began the final month of the campaign with less than $1.4 million in the bank — only about a quarter of the $5.5 million war chest enjoyed by Republican rival Rubio — still has a fighting chance in the three-way race.
“I don’t think you can put a fork into it quite yet,” Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, told the Naples Daily News, which partnered with Zogby in conducting the poll.
If this latest poll proves to be accurate, Floridians might be on the verge of witnessing one of the most exciting come-from-behind victories in recent history. Charlie Crist, a man without a party, could be the new “Comeback Kid” in American politics.
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