Poll: Tough road ahead for establishment pols

by Keith Laing
The News Service of Florida

Once favored to handily win their respective party’s nominations, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum and Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Kendrick Meek could be running out of time to catch up to their outsider opponents, a new poll suggests.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed both men trailing their largely self-financed opponents by double digits. Former Columbia Healthcare/HCA CEO Rick Scott led McCollum 44-31 percent, while wealthy real estate investor Jeff Greene was ahead of Meek 33-23.

Making matters worse for the one-time front-runners, 55 percent of the likely Republican voters surveyed said their minds were made up. After a year of campaigning, 55 percent of Democrats said they haven’t heard enough about Meek to form an opinion of him.

They have heard plenty about Scott and Greene, who have blanketed television airwaves in the state with slickly produced commercials that have painted McCollum and Meek as “career politicians.” The amplified message is working, Quinnipiac University Polling Institute assistant director Peter Brown said.

“Money matters,” he said. “It’s certainly not the only thing, but the fact that Jeff Greene and Rick Scott now have double digit leads … shows that you can go from nobody knows who you are to being ahead in a major race if you have enough money.

“Obviously the messages that Scott and Greene have been able to send to voters through record television spending has been effective,” Brown continued. “They’re a little bit different, but there’s a lot in common … this is a year in which being a longtime elected official is not necessarily an asset.”

Previous incarnations of self-financed campaigns have usually been dogged by the candidate’s lack of governmental experience. But Scott and Greene are running in a year when ire at government is running high nationally, Brown said.

“Florida may be a peninsula, but it’s not an island,” he said. “Voters here are no different than the rest of the country.”

Though both face uphill climbs with voters set to go to the polls in about a month, McCollum may be in more trouble than Meek, Brown said. Anger at the Democratically controlled federal government means Republicans are even more likely to be receptive to Scott’s “outsider” message than Democrats, though Greene has clearly gained traction too.

“If you look at the question of what do you want in a governor, somebody with long years of government experience or an outsider, the outsider wins more than 2-to-1,” Brown said. “Of the two, clearly Scott’s the outsider. In fact, the outsider wins more than Scott is winning, but that’s an image and a theme that’s very popular this year.”

Perhaps a saving grace for Meek is there are more undecided voters in his race than McCollum - 35 percent compared to 23 percent. Additionally, more Democratic voters say they might change their mind - 54 percent - than say their mind is made up - 43 percent.

It is also harder for Democrats to run against government, Brown said.

“If you look at the undecideds and the people who may change their mind, Scott’s lead in the Republican race is probably a little firmer than Greene’s in the Democratic race,” he said. “If you look at the (outsider versus experience) question on the Democrat race, most Democratic voters say they would prefer a candidate with a lot of government experience.

“That’s really a difference between the two parties,” Brown continued. “Even in a year of anti-incumbency, Democrats don’t like to run against government. It doesn’t work very well.”