Jesse Scheckner
The runoff between former Pinecrest Mayor Cindy Lerner and Raquel Regalado, the Miami-Dade Commissioner Lerner hopes to unseat in District 7, is “extraordinarily competitive” and “very winnable” for the challenger, new internal polling data shows.
A survey of likely General Election voters found Lerner and Regaldo are statistically tied. And the more Lerner hammers Regalado on key issues like overdevelopment, the better she’s likely to fare Nov. 5.
Tallahassee-based Clearview Research, commissioned by Lerner’s campaign, polled 300 likely District 7 voters by phone Aug. 28-Sept. 3. The poll had a 6-percentage-point margin of error and a 95% confidence level.
At the onset of the survey, 37% of respondents said they planned to vote for Lerner, a Democrat, compared to 36% who said the same about Regalado, a Republican. This was despite pollsters modeling the race with +2 Republican participation and the fact that Hispanics composed more than half the district’s likely voter base — both factors they believed should have favored the incumbent.
After respondents heard negative messaging about Regalado, favor swung a net 12 points Lerner’s way, with 43% of those polled saying they prefer her compared to 30% for Regalado.
Asked what issues they’d most want the Miami-Dade Commission to address, 18% of respondents said development, 18% said public safety and 16% said taxes.
Twice as many respondents agreed with the statement, “Overdevelopment in my community is out of control and needs to be reined in,” than disagreed with it.
Less than a quarter agreed there should be more development to address a shortage in the county’s housing inventory.
Other standout concerns among voters included the umbrella issue of the economy, jobs and the cost of living, with 12% of respondents saying it was top-of-mind for them. Ten percent said the same about traffic and transit, while 5% pointed to Florida’s insurance problems as most urgent.
Notably, the survey found Regalado’s support is softest among whom pollsters believed should be her base: Hispanic Republican and Republican-leaning women.
Negative messaging about development was also most effective in souring those voters’ opinions about Regalado, according to Clearview’s Steven Vancore and Karen Garner.
They wrote that the “negative messaging notes struck by Lerner in the Primary (namely that Regalado is beholden to developers) resonates strongly with the general electorate, particularly with Hispanic women.”
“Salient negatives” about Regalado that pollsters said “speak directly to voters’ existing anxieties about their neighborhoods” include her 2022 vote to move the Urban Development Boundary and donations she’s accepted from developers and what Lerner and others have called “dark money.” groups that work to conceal their contributors’ identities.
“Lerner hammered this message in the Primary, effectively enough to position herself in a competitive General Election against an incumbent with a significant advantage in both name ID and campaign cash,” Vancore and Garner wrote. “Now Lerner has clearly laid out a path to victory in November but our audience of potential voters has expanded greatly.”
Other findings of the poll include:
— 74% of District 7 respondents are more enthusiastic about voting this November than they were in previous election cycles, including 84% of Democrats and 76% of Republicans.
— Democrats and Republicans 50 and older in District 7 are more eager to vote than their younger counterparts. The contrary is true for third-party and no-party voters.
— District 7 voters are split on the presidential race, with 48% supporting Kamala Harris and 47% siding with Donald Trump. Forty-nine percent of respondents said they view Harris favorably, compared to 46% who said the same about the former President.
— In the race for Sheriff, Democratic Chief of Public Safety James Reyes and Republican Assistant Miami-Dade Police Director Rosie Cordero-Stutz had 37% support apiece. The remaining 26% are either undecided or didn’t care to answer.
This is the second time Lerner and Regalado are squaring off for to represent District 7, which covers Pinecrest, Key Biscayne, portions of Coral Gables, South Miami and Miami, including the neighborhoods of Coconut Grove and Virginia Key, and the unincorporated neighborhoods of Kendall and Sunset.
In their first matchup four years ago, Regalado, a lawyer and former Miami-Dade School Board member, defeated Lerner, a lawyer and former state lawmaker, with 50.6% of the vote.
Last month, Regalado took about 49% of the vote. Lerner took 42%. The rest went to third-place candidate Richard Prashnik.
To win outright and avoid a runoff, a candidate had to take more than half the vote.
