Janelle Irwin Taylor
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist begins the General Election campaign for Florida’s 13th Congressional District with a 16-point lead over Republican challenger Anna Paulina Luna.
This is according to the latest St. Pete Polls survey of the Pinellas County-based seat.
Sixteen points is about the same margin of victory by which Crist defeated Republican George Buck in 2018.
Luna is a Donald Trump acolyte who surged in August to win the Republican Primary against Amanda Makki, who many observers regarded as a more moderate — and therefore electable — candidate.
Luna ran on a platform mostly shared among conservative candidates nationwide, painting Crist as a socialist-aligned Democrat who must be taken down at all costs.
That platform may have been the right message in a GOP primary, but it’s unclear how Luna can beat the as-popular-as-ever Crist in a district where Democrats hold a nearly 27,000 voter edge.
The Democrats’ advantage in CD 13 bears out in this poll, which asked respondents who they support for President.
Vice President Joe Biden leads Trump by 14 points (54%-40%). That should be welcome news to the Biden campaign since Trump lost CD 13 by just four points to Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Democrats are more active in CD 13 than Republicans, according to a St. Pete Polls analysis of all registered voters in the district. For the sake of this analysis, St. Pete Polls considered an active voter any voter who cast a ballot in the last four years.
Democrats comprise 38% of all registered voters in the district, compared to just 33% Republicans. Of those, 40% of registered Democrats are considered active while 36% of registered Republicans were.
In even more good news for Crist, Democrats have grown their voting base since 2016, while Republicans actually lost voters. The percentage of overall registered Democrats in CD 13 rose 0.1% from 2016 to 2020, while Republicans lost 0.5% of their voting base.
Not surprisingly, Crist leads overwhelmingly among Democrats with 82% support. He only has support among 22% of registered Republicans, though his share of cross-party support is higher than Luna’s 12% support among Democrats.
Crist also leads among independent voters, 57% to 35%.
Crist leads in all racial demographics except Asian or Pacific Islanders, among whom support Luna with 52.5% to 40%. However, of the 2,160 likely voters polled, only 40 fell into that demographic, making the lead statistically insignificant.
Crist’s largest lead is among Black voters, a demographic in which he leads Luna 85% to 9.5%.
The race is closest among White voters, where 51% support Crist compared to just 43% for Luna.
Crist also leads among both genders, with 54% support among male voters and 55% among women. Luna claimed just 40% support among men and 38% among women.
CD 13 voters also largely disapprove of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ job performance with 50% disapproving and 41% approving. The rest were unsure.
2 comments
Pedro
August 31, 2020 at 12:00 am
Charlie Crist is a great congressman. I hope he wins. He is a moderate, reasonable person, not a Trump supporter, as his radical Republican opponent is. We need to elect good, decent people like Joe Biden and Charlie Crist.
Mark
September 1, 2020 at 12:54 pm
Crist voters should carefully research his record before deciding. Charlie was a republican turned independent turned Democrat. He has been in politics longer than Anna Paulina Luna has been alive. That can be an advantage or a disadvantage, obviously – but this vote is about our future.
Hating Trump is easy, he’s no gentleman when he’s “negotiating”, but Charlie votes with Pelosi 99% of the time, more than 90% of the time with Nadler (who says Antifa is a myth) and Schiff; and more than 90% of the time with AOC, Omar, Talib and Pressley, aka “The Squad”. That’s not good for America.
Anna is hopefully our future; a force against those who wish to destroy America as we know it. Supported by powerful black and latino young opinion leaders and others who think for themselves and are sometimes afraid to share their views. Afterall, you can get killed for being a conservative in some places in America today. I’m a proud “Luna-tic” and Deplorable as well, but you knew that.
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