Mitch Perry
With a Republican governor and overwhelmingly GOP-led Legislature, Florida is being well served by its legislators in Tallahassee, right?
Not exactly.
A new Public Policy Polling survey released Thursday shows that 58 percent of Florida voters want Medicaid expansion. Independents support it by 57 percent, while there is a 12-point difference among Republicans (33/45). Despite those numbers, the Florida House still refuses to work with the state Senate on a hybrid expansion plan. Such a program would allow the state to draw down federal funding to provide health care coverage for up to a million Floridians now without coverage.
St. Petersburg state Sen. Jeff Brandes proposed a medical marijuana bill for this legislative session, but the odds of that becoming law look don’t look promising. Organizers with Amendment 2, the constitutional amendment that fell just short of the 60 percent needed to pass last year, are working on collecting signatures for a similar measure for the 2016 ballot. PPP shows that 58 percent now support the measure, the same percentage that favored it at the polls in 2014. But PPP predicts the the odds are good that if it makes it to the ballot next year, it will be successful.
“With a younger and more progressive presidential year electorate it seems like it would have a pretty good chance at hitting 60 percent support on the second go around,” the pollsters write.
Same-sex marriage became the law of the land in Florida in early January, the protestations of social conservatives such as John Stemberger notwithstanding. Eighty-one percent of Floridians tell PPP that it’s either had a positive effect on their lives or no effect at all, with just 20 percent saying it has affected them negatively.
Despite his re-election last fall, Gov. Rick Scott continues to be underwater when it comes to his personal approval rankings. Public Policy Polling reports that 42 percent of likely voters approve of his job performance, while 46 percent disapprove. If he were to run against Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate in 2018, Nelson right now has a slight lead, 47-43 percent.
In the aftermath of Charlie Crist‘s narrow loss to Scott in November, a member of Crist’s campaign team, Kevin Cate, wrote an op-ed suggesting that the state move its gubernatorial election to the same year as the presidential contest, since so many more (Democratic) voters participate in those election years. PPP found that 49 percent of voters say they would support moving gubernatorial elections in the state to presidential election years, compared with only 27 percent opposed. Democrats (57/21), independents (51/28), and Republicans (41/33) all say they’d favor such a shift of when elections are held.
In a survey on the state’s favorite baseball teams, the Tampa Bay Rays are only the fourth most popular franchise in Florida. Two out-of-state teams, the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees, top the list of favorite MLB franchises as the 2015 season nears.
Seventeen percent of those polled told PPP that the Braves remain their favorite team. Undoubtedly much of that support comes from the fact that until 22 years ago, the Braves were the only baseball team playing in the Southeast. The New York Yankees come in at 14 percent, with much of that love coming from former New Yorkers who dot the state, especially in South Florida. The Yankees also train in downtown Tampa, the only MLB franchise that conducts their spring training in another local team’s market. The Miami Marlins are third-most popular with 12 percent, and then come the Rays at 11 percent.
In college football, it’s a neck-and-neck battle for state supremacy between the Florida Gators and the Florida State Seminoles, with UF taking a slight 23-22 percent lead. UCF and the University of Miami are tied at 10 percent, USF at 8 percent, Florida Atlantic at 4 percent, and Florida International gets a lowly 1 percent.
