Jim Rosica
New polls show Florida Congresswoman Gwen Graham losing a proposed redrawn 2nd Congressional District seat next election but leading other contenders in a hypothetical matchup for Marco Rubio‘s U.S. Senate seat.
But the polls don’t show her standing in the district as currently drawn, which takes in a swath of north Florida roughly from Perry to Bonifay.
The Harper Polling surveys for the National Republican Congressional Committee show the first-term Democrat losing to any “Republican challenger” in the next election for a redrawn version of Florida’s 2nd Congressional District 49 percent-40 percent, with 11 percent undecided. The results were first reported by POLITICO Florida on Tuesday.
But the current boundaries of her district – now covering much of the Big Bend and Panhandle, including Tallahassee – may change. The courts soon will resolve a lawsuit claiming the state’s congressional districts were gerrymandered after the 2010 census.
One possibility is that U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown‘s current 5th Congressional District, which stretches from Jacksonville to Sanford, be redrawn east-west. That would cut into Graham’s Democratic voter base.
Brown wallops Graham in an imaginary match-up 53 percent-29 percent, with 18 percent undecided, the poll shows.
But if the Senate election were held today, Graham would take 40 percent, compared to U.S. Reps. Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson at 9 percent each, with 42 percent undecided.
Rubio, now running for president, is not seeking re-election.
“Graham has a significant advantage on the Democratic primary ballot for Senate,” the poll says. “She leads among likely voters of all self-identified ideologies,” listing out “Very Liberal: 44 percent, Somewhat Liberal: 52 percent, Moderate: 42 percent, Conservative: 25 percent.”
The surveys were conducted Sept. 19-21.
The sample size for the 2nd Congressional District poll was 495 likely voters and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.35 percent.
The sample size for the 5th Congressional District poll was 400 likely Democratic primary voters and the margin of error was plus or minus 4.87 percent.
Last month at an event in Tallahassee, Graham was asked how confident she was that a new map would be favorable to her.
“Who knows?” she said. “We are in uncharted territory. But I don’t deal with ‘what ifs.’ I’ll wait to see what the outcome is.”
One political observer saw the silver lining in the GOP polls.
Matthew Isbell, an elections data consultant who works mainly for Democrats, tweeted earlier Tuesday: “Should be noted, if Graham actually got 40% in the new CD2, this would be 6 points better than Obama did.”
