Peter Schorsch
With Republican Rick Baker announcing last week that he will not run in Florida’s battleground 13th Congressional District, it’s widely thought that the winner of the Democratic primary will succeed U.S. Rep. David Jolly in Congress. Seeking to replace him are former Gov. Charlie Crist and political newcomer Eric Lynn.
A new poll shows that Lynn is finally closing the gap on Crist among Democratic primary voters.
Crist leads Lynn 70 percent to 18 percent, according to a St. Pete Polls survey commissioned by FloridaPolitics.com. This is a clear uptick for Lynn from two previous polls, which showed Crist leading Lynn by 63 and 60 points, respectively.
In just nine months, Lynn has gained 11 points on Crist, putting Lynn on pace to catch the former-Republican-turned-Democrat by July 2019.
The St. Pete Polls survey shows that Crist is hamstrung by a 75 percent favorability rating among Democrats in CD 13. A full 16 percent have an unfavorable opinion of him.
Lynn has a bright upside with 54 percent of CD 13 Democrats not knowing enough about him to form an opinion of him. Despite never run for office before, Lynn has a favorable/unfavorable rating of 25/22 (that’s right – with all of Crist’s supposed baggage, Lynn’s unfavorable rating is six points higher than Crist’s.)
CD 13 voters were asked who they supported in the race for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat. U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy leads U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson 27 to 21 percent. Most CD 13 Democrats are either unsure or prefer someone else.
Hillary Clinton is the preferred presidential nominee of 70 percent of CD 13 voters.
Voters polled were chosen at random from the registered voter population within the new boundaries of Florida’s 13th Congressional District. The random sample used was made up of a proportional sampling of registered Democratic voters who voted in either the 2012 or 2014 primary. Scientific results shown for the questions below have a sample size of 686 and a 3.7 percent margin of error at a 95 percent confidence level.
