Sustained character attacks from Republican primary rival George LeMieux and
hand-wringing by some GOP activists about his prospects in the general
election don't appear to have damaged U.S. Rep. Connie Mack's U.S. Senate bid,
according to new polls from Quinnipiac University and NBC News-Marist.
The Quinnipiac poll shows a virtual tie between Mack and Democratic Sen.
Bill Nelson while the Marist poll gives Nelson a 4-point lead.
The Marist poll also shows President Obama holding a 48-44 percent lead
over Mitt Romney in Florida, while the Quinnipiac poll shows 46 percent of
Floridians disapproving of Gov. Rick Scott's handling of his job, compared to
41 percent who approve. That's the first time Scott's job approval has topped
40 percent in a Quinnipiac poll, with the previous high a 50 percent
disapproval to 38 percent approval in January.
The new Quinnipiac survey, released Thursday, also shows those opposing
stricter gun control outnumbering those favoring it in three of the poll's
four questions about guns. Most notably, 56 percent support Florida's
stand-your-ground law while 38 percent oppose it. But to the question of
whether concealed-weapons permit holders should be allowed to bring a gun into
the state Capitol, 83 percent said no, compared to 14 percent who said yes.
The new Senate polls suggest the race has tightened since last month,
when a Rasmussen poll gave Nelson an 11-point lead over Mack and the
Democratic firm Public Policy Polling showed Nelson up by 10 points.
Quinnipiac's last Senate poll in late March had Nelson up by 8 points.
Quinnipiac's Senate poll shows Mack ahead by a 42-41 percent margin
that's within the poll's 2.4 percent margin of error.
The Marist poll gives Nelson a 46-42 percent lead over Mack. That poll
has a 3 percent margin of error.
In the Republican Senate primary, Quinnipiac shows Mack getting 40
percent to clobber either LeMieux (7 percent) or businessman Mike McCalister
(8 percent). The survey was conducted May 15-21 and didn't include former
Republican Rep. Dave Weldon, who announced his candidacy last Friday.
Quinnipiac's general election poll is based on a sample that Democrats
say is too tilted to the GOP.
Using the same 1,722-voter sample, Quinnipiac released results Wednesday
showing Romney leading Obama by 6 points in Florida. Democrats complained that
while they hold a 40-36 percent statewide edge in voter registration, the
weighted sample in the Quinnipiac poll was 34 percent Republican and 31
percent Democrat.
Quinnipiac's Peter Brown defended the poll, saying the way people
self-identify their party affiliation is a better gauge of voter sentiment
than how voters are actually registered.
"What we're getting is real-time party ID. And our real-time party ID is
different, not surprisingly, from registration," Brown said Wednesday. "If
party registration is an accurate measure of voting behavior, then why do the
Republicans control, with the exception of Bill Nelson's seat, every statewide
office?" Brown said Wednesday.
Marist's sample tilts more Democratic than statewide registrations, with
43 percent of respondents saying they are registered as Democrats and 35
percent Republican.
