Jacob Ogles
An internal poll from one of U.S. Rep. Cory Mills’ Democratic opponents suggests Florida’s 7th Congressional District could be competitive. But is it an outlier?
Democrat Jennifer Adams, the lead fundraiser within the CD 7 Democratic field, released a Public Policy Polling survey that shows her 5 points behind in a hypothetical matchup with Mills. More importantly, it finds support for Mills under 50% as he runs for a second term.
The poll shows Mills leading with 48% support to Adams’ 43% among registered voters in the district, with the remaining 9% of voters undecided. A polling memo does not disclose the margin of error in the survey.
That was with a Republican-leaning electorate, pollsters suggest, as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leads Democratic President Joe Biden 52% to 45% in the same poll within the district. In 2020, Trump won CD 7 with 52% to Biden’s nearly 47%, results similar to those polled by PPP.
Adams’ campaign presented the poll as evidence CD 7 remains a swing district even after Florida instituted a congressional map in 2022 that seemed to prompt Democratic U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy’s retirement from the House.
“Regardless of party affiliation, people are ready to replace our extremist incumbent congressman with a bipartisan problem solver who actually represents and cares about our Central Florida community,” Adams said.
But the poll doesn’t necessarily show the path for Adams to upset Mills. Notably, she’s one of three Democrats running, but the campaign did not test support for Primary opponents Tatiana Fernandez or Alek Pastrana. It also did not test if Mills falls to Republican Primary opponent Mike Johnson.
PPP pollsters surveyed 594 voters from June 13 to 14. A release from the campaign said voters were given short biographies of Adams and Mills of similar length, though the bios were not immediately provided by the campaign.
A press release from Adams’ campaign calls Mills “an international arms dealer who has refused to disclose which foreign nations he’s sold weapons to and a carpetbagger who rented a house in Florida in 2021 just to run for Congress.” It presents Adams as “a Central Florida native, community leader, mediator, mom, and survivor of domestic violence who was instrumental in helping write and pass bipartisan legislation to better protect Florida children.”
Political analysis website FiveThirtyEight gives PPP a rating of 1.4 on a scale of 3, ranking around No. 206 out of 277 major pollsters graded by the site.
But the poll signals competitiveness in a district that statistically always showed the potential to become a battleground. Of the 20 Florida congressional districts where a majority of voters backed Trump in 2020, the Republican won a lower level of support in CD 7 than any other seat but one: Florida’s 15th Congressional District. Trump won Florida’s popular vote with 51% of the vote to Biden’s almost 48%.
So can the district become competitive? Mills has only won one race in CD 7, taking more than 58% of the vote in 2022 to Democrat Karen Green’s less than 42%. That was after spending upward of $2.6 million, much of that in a contentious Republican Primary, while Green spent less than $68,000 over the course of the race.
Adams has already raised more this cycle than Green in 2022. Through March, she reported about $91,000 in fundraising. Much of that has been spent and she closed the quarter with about $35,000. By comparison, Fernandez ended the quarter with about $16,000 in the bank, while Pastrana had less than $12,000.
Mills, meanwhile, collected more than $874,000 this cycle and finished the quarter with more than $223,000 in cash. Adams’ team noted that Mills’ campaign still has $2.2 million in debt dating back to Mills’ 2022 campaign. All loans ever reported by Mills have come from the candidate.
