A Tale Of Two Polls: New Survey Shows Major Departure From Fried’s Internal Poll In Florida’s Democratic Gubernatorial Primary

Crist, who held three of Florida’s highest elected state offices when he was still a Republican, and then switched to being a Democrat during the Obama years, was supported by 54 percent of the 800 Florida Democrats polled by GBAO. State Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried was second, with 28 percent. State Sen. Annette Taddeo, who ran as Crist’s lieutenant governor in 2014 when he was beaten by incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Scott, was a distant third, with 7 percent. The rest were undecided.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried apparently is not as close to taking on incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis as she wants people to believe.

Fried, the state government’s only statewide-elected Democrat, claimed last week that she was hot on the heels of U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist in her party’s gubernatorial primary.

As Florida Politics noted, Fried’s campaign revealed internal polling that showed the former pot lobbyist running just behind the former Republican governor, 38 percent to 34 percent.

Fried’s campaign manager told the website that their poll, taken June 8–13 and reported on Thursday, clearly indicated the race was a “dead heat.”

Yet on Monday, Florida Politics released its own poll, which did not involve one of the political campaigns. The results, suffice to say, are quite different.

That poll, taken Thursday and Friday after news of Fried’s gap-closing exploits broke, showed Crist leads the ag commissioner by a margin of 49 percent to 24 percent.

In Fried’s defense, she has narrowed the gap — barely.

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St. Pete Polls, the same pollster that took last week’s survey, released a poll in early May that showed Crist ahead 51-19. That was before state Sen. Annette Taddeo dropped out. The South Florida Democrat was pulling 5 percent in that poll.

Still, the poll by Florida Politics shows Crist, of Clearwater, dominating Fried in every demographic group.

As Florida Politics diplomatically put it, “Crist’s 25-percentage-point lead in the poll shows a different state of the race than internal polling recently released by Fried’s campaign.”

Regardless of who carries the Democratic banner this fall, Gov. DeSantis remains solid on re-election at this point.

The latest polling from Real Clear Politics’ average of major polls shows DeSantis with a 9-point lead over Crist and a 13-point advantage over Fried.

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