from The News Service of Florida
Independent gubernatorial candidate Lawton “Bud” Chiles will formally announce today that he is quitting the governor’s race and will endorse Democrat Alex Sink, a campaign spokesman said.
Sink may attend Chiles’ announcement in Tallahassee.
Money was an issue. Chiles raised about $100,000 for his campaign, but $25,000 came from his own pocket.
There was also concern among Democrats, which Chiles used to be, that he might pull votes from Sink, helping Republican Rick Scott, though some polls have shown Chiles drawing support from both camps.
Chiles told the News Service of Florida on Wednesday that he felt good about throwing his support behind Sink.
“There’s children’s issues, environmental and educational issues we agree on,” Chiles said. “We’ve talked. She knows she has to be aggressive, more the `tip of the spear’ in this campaign. But I’ll do whatever I can for her.”
Chiles was on a low budget quest to make campaigns less high budget, trying to eschew the big money politics he said has tarnished the political system. Running a grassroots campaign in a state with multiple media markets, a state in which driving from top to bottom would cost you more than a day making plane travel necessary.
“I found that this is an awful big state,” Chiles said of his abbreviated candidacy. “It seems like it’s gotten bigger since I was a kid.”
The announcement by Chiles will compete for the attention of political watchers in the state with Scott’s announcement of his pick of a running mate in Jacksonville.
Scott was dismissive Wednesday of Chiles’ candidacy.
“We have always planned on a two-person race for governor,” Scott said in a statement released by his campaign. “Anyone who doubted that Chiles would eventually drop out underestimates how desperately Obama liberals like Alex Sink want to do to Florida what they have done to America.”
Trying to blunt what has been widely portrayed as good news for Sink, Scott contended that a poll done by his campaign showed he would be helped as much by Chiles’ departure from the race as his opponent. While not releasing details of the survey, Scott said the internal poll found a large number of those who said they were planning to vote for Chiles had been McCain supporters and were 47 percent Republican and only 30 percent Democrats and 23 percent independent.
A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed Chiles drawing support from 12 percent of Florida voters, and alarming to the Sink campaign, it showed that 9 percent of state registered Democrats told Quinnipiac they would vote for Chiles, while 8 percent of Republicans said they’d vote for Chiles. That number for Democrats would be larger because there are more registered Democrats.