Crist Bounce Over, Rubio Surges Ahead
A Rasmussen poll out today shows some exceedingly bad news for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist as he hopes to keep alive his bid to earn a U.S. Senate seat as an independent.
Namely, Crist is getting left in the dust by Republican Marco Rubio in overall polls in a similar vein to what was happening to him while running in the Republican primary.
Rasmussen’s numbers indicate Rubio now holds a 39 percent share of the vote, compared to Crist’s 31 percent. Democrat congressman Kendrick Meek sits at 18 percent, with 12 percent undecided.
A poll two weeks ago had Crist at 38 percent to Rubio’s 34. It’s clear that Crist’s bounce upon announcing he’d run as an independent has melted away. And last week’s announcement by the Crist campaign that he wouldn’t return campaign contributions from GOP donors certainly didn’t help his cause.
Rubio is now beating Crist 68-23 among Republicans in Florida, a wider margin than two weeks ago when Crist held 30 percent of the GOP vote. Crist now trails Meek among Democrats, and leads Rubio by only three among independents.
The very few independent candidates who win usually do so as true outsiders, casting a pox on both parties and claiming the system is broken and can only be fixed by someone from outside it, someone uncorrupted by lobbyists buying favors, etc.
Needless to say, Charlie Crist cannot run that kind of campaign. In fact, it's hard to find any rationale for Crist's campaign at this point. That's ultimately why he will lose — there is no real reason to vote for him.
But what about Joe Lieberman's victory as an independent, you might ask. Lieberman had the benefit of having no real Republican candidate in the race. He got about half the Democrat vote and all of the Republican vote. Crist won't have the luxury of getting to go head to head with Rubio. Lieberman also lost his party's primary very narrowly, instead of quitting because he was going to get killed.
The very few independent candidates who win usually do so as true outsiders, casting a pox on both parties and claiming the system is broken and can only be fixed by someone from outside it, someone uncorrupted by lobbyists buying favors, etc.
Needless to say, Charlie Crist cannot run that kind of campaign. In fact, it's hard to find any rationale for Crist's campaign at this point. That's ultimately why he will lose — there is no real reason to vote for him.
But what about Joe Lieberman's victory as an independent, you might ask. Lieberman had the benefit of having no real Republican candidate in the race. He got about half the Democrat vote and all of the Republican vote. Crist won't have the luxury of getting to go head to head with Rubio. Lieberman also lost his party's primary very narrowly, instead of quitting because he was going to get killed.