Ryan Nicol
A new internal poll released by the Rick Scott campaign shows the Republican ahead by 5 percentage points in the race for U.S. Senate.
That’s in disagreement with a pair of independent polls released Monday, which show the candidates either deadlocked or with Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson in the lead.
The Scott survey was conducted by OnMessage Inc. and consisted of 2,200 likely voters. It showed Scott earning 51 percent support with Nelson nabbing 46 percent, leaving 3 percent undecided. The margin of error was just over 2 percent.
As usual, be advised against latching onto publicly-released findings from campaigns.
The 5-point margin for Scott does match his lead in polls taken from May through mid-August, most of which appeared to show Nelson was in trouble of losing his Senate seat.
However, Nelson’s fortunes have turned around in recent months according to outside pollsters. FiveThirtyEight now gives him about a 2 in 3 chance of beating back Scott’s challenge.
Scott’s internal also has him with 56 percent approval rating, while 40 percent of voters disapprove. That’s well ahead of Nelson, who was barely above water. In total, 46 percent of those polled approved of his work in the Senate, while 45 percent disapproved.
The survey was conducted from Oct. 14-18.
