Florida Senate: Harris Behind Nelson

by Chris Bowers, Wed Jun 15, 2005 at 01:22:11 PM EDT

In Florida, as I am sure you have heard by now, Katherine Harris is going to run for Senate. Once you are done vomiting, you might be somewhat encouraged by this poll from Republican firm Strategic Vision:Strategic Vision (R) poll. June 9-13, 2005. N=1,200 registered voters statewide. MoE ± 3 (for all registered voters).

Date	Nelson	  Harris
6/13	  48	    42
4/24	  48	    41

I wouldn't be surprised if Harris actually has a higher name ID than Nelson, so I don't think the incumbent rule would apply here. Also, this is a Republican poll, so Nelson might be doing a little bit better than this. Further, Harris is a shoe-in to be the Republican nominee, at least according Strategic Vision: "Who would you support for the Republican nomination for United States senator in 2006: [see below]?" Among Republican voters

		     6/13    4/24   
Katherine Harris	    47	    35
Charlie Crist	      15      20
Tom Gallgaher	      11      18
Toni Jennings	      7       9
Others		      7       10
Undecided		      13      8

There is reason to hope that Harris being in the race will greatly boast turnout among Democrats across Florida in 2006. Further, despite her high name ID, people clearly do not like her. In fact, Nelson is actually behind a couple of Republican candidates, Crist and Gallagher, in the same Strategic Vision poll that he leads Harris. Although this is not a slam-dunk by any means, it is nice to see that Republicans are probably going to choose a candidate as poor as Katherine Harris to run against our most endangered incumbent. Against almost anyone else, Nelson would have been in a lot of trouble.

Tags: Senate 2006 (all tags)

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Wasn't it Stalin

who said something like "its not who votes that counts, but who counts the votes. . . "

This is Florida where they are talking about replacing the new touch screen voting machines with optical scanners where it is easy to hack the databases when the tallies are sent in.

Do the R's care about polls? will they hack the vote? Anything is possible.

by RevDeb 2005-06-15 01:58PM | 0 recs

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Nelson has good Republican approval.

I am surprised he is not doing better against her, considering the fact that the Bush brothers distanced themselves from her last time.

I have a poll from recently which shows Bill Nelson with a 52% approval rating among Republicans. He only has a 47% approval rating among Democrats.

I will see if I can find it.

by concerned democrat 2005-06-15 02:53PM | 0 recs

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Here is the Feb. poll from Swing State.

Florida 2006 poll

Another Quinnipiac poll--this time regarding Florida 2006. The data covers both races, Governor and Bill Nelson's re-election bid. For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus on the race for Senate; visit the link above for more information on the Governor's race. (MoE +/- 3.1%)

Bill Nelson: While his approval ratings have breached the all-important 50 percent mark, his re-elect numbers are troubling. At the very least, his numbers are on the rise from the last Quinnipiac polling:

Approve: 50% (46)
Disapprove: 17% (17)
Don't Know: 33% (37)

Ironically, his approval ratings are higher among Republican (52%) than they are Democrats (49%).

I was off on the latter percentage.

by concerned democrat 2005-06-15 03:01PM | 0 recs

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Nelson should win, but his main problem

is lack of self promotion.

There are a few issues to varying degrees here that he has lobbied for, such as having NASCAR Hall Of Fame in Daytona, and keeping USS KENNEDY alive in Jacksonville.

Problem is, he just doesn't grab the media by the collar and make them listen as he should.

by Sam Loomis 2005-06-15 03:46PM | 0 recs

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Re: Nelson should win, but his main problem

I disagree. His main problem is that the GOP will rig the voting machines. We'll find an amazing number of people who voted a straight Democratic ticket, except they crossed over to vote for Harris in the Senate race.

by desmoinesdem 2005-06-15 08:55PM | 0 recs

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Nelson v. Harris

You're right, I had to pause to vomit before I could study the statistics. Despite the uncertainty of any outcomes in FLA, I have to believe that statewide, Cruella doesn't stand a chance.

by donkef 2005-06-15 04:44PM | 0 recs

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This Race is About Money

Harris was told by the White House NOT to run in 2004 because her presence might be so polarizing that she could lose the state and land Dubya and Dick at the Crawford, TX unemployment line. She got the all clear to run here because the national GOP figures this race will suck lots of Democrat resources to hold. As they already have the lead in seats. The GOP is happy to hold the line. Gain no seats if they lose no seats.

But Florida, as a "red state" remains a target of opportunity because they are counting on us to be afraid of losing yet another red state senator while pouring in dough that could be used to recapture seats elsewhere. Harris is such a great villain that no matter how much money is spent, Nelson will win by the same small margin as most of the incumbents...potentially leaving the Democrats with nothing to show for the $100 million or so to be spent on next year's Senate races.

by risenmessiah 2005-06-15 04:55PM | 0 recs

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Let's assume that even this race...

...will have a fair election. Obviously, be on the look out for fraud, but we must act like it is a fair election-otherwise there is no point.

I will repeat a point I've made before: Nobody has proved election fraud in the 2004 elections. There's a lot of "that kinda smells" out there, but there is absolutely no smoking gun. If the elections are, in fact, permanently fixed, we should be starting an armed revolt to remove the unelected government, not raising money and looking at polls and stuff. I hope it never comes to that.

by Geotpf 2005-06-16 09:04AM | 0 recs

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If we wait for a smoking gun,

we'll never find one. "Nothing's been proven" is the standard argument made by those who oppose investigations that might prove something. In the meantime, they're perfecting the system so that fraud will never be provable. Did you read about the latest bit of chicanery?

I also disagree with your premise: the burden of proof isn't on us, it's on the people who derive their authority from elections. If they can't or won't establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the electoral system is being administered fairly, we have no obligation to respect them.

The alternative to armed revolt is agitation, creating enough public pressure that they have no choice but to comply. But like I said, if we wait for a smoking gun, we'll never find one.

by catastrophile 2005-06-16 10:37AM | 0 recs