Miami Beach, FL
Quinnipiac. 1/4-8. Registered voters. MoE ±2.6%. (10/31-11/7):
Bill Nelson (D-inc): 41 (42)
Connie Mack (R): 40 (40)
Undecided: 16 (16)
Republican primary:
Connie Mack (R): 39 (32)
George LeMieux (R): 6 (9)
Mike McCalister (R): 6 (6)
Adam Hasner (R): 2 (2)
Craig Miller (R): 1 (2)
Undecided: 42 (45)
We're definitely getting mixed signals here about whether the race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Rep. Connie Mack IV is a tossup or not; when Mack first got in the race several months ago, Quinnipiac found that Nelson was up only 2 points. Public Policy Polling came along a month later, though, and found that the race really hadn't budged much, and that Nelson led Mack 46-35, a spread not much different than the leads he'd previously been posting against the other non-entities who were already in the race.
Now Quinnipiac is back with its riposte, finding once again that the race is paper-thin. That's despite Nelson having very solid approvals (47/30 in this sample), so Quinnipiac finds the exact opposite of PPP (who found that there were a lot of people, probably liberal Democrats, who disapproved of Nelson but would vote for him anyway, given the alternatives): that there are people out there who approve of him but still won't vote for him.
As far as the aforementioned Republican non-entities go, Mack has extended his lead on all of them, gaining a few points in the GOP primary at the expense of former appointed Sen. George LeMieux. At this point, the main question about the primary is who drops out when, rather than whether any of them will be able to derail Mack.
Barack Obama (D-inc): 43 (42)
Mitt Romney (R): 46 (45)
Undecided: 6 (6)
Barack Obama (D-inc): 45 (--)
Rick Santorum (R): 43 (--)
Undecided: 7 (--)
Also showing very little change is the status of the presidential race in Florida; Mitt Romney maintains a three-point lead over Barack Obama here. That's pretty consistent with Florida's usual position about two points to the right of the national average and the general sense that the Obama/Romney race nationwide is a tie game right now or only a tiny Obama advantage. ("Undecideds" stay at 6, so in case you're wondering, the increase in Obama and Romney's numbers instead come from people moving away from "Some other.") They also take their first (and probably last) look at Rick Santorum, finding him competitive but lagging Romney by about five points' worth of electability.
The story here is told in the favorables. Everyone knows Obama and give him a job approval of 42/54, while Romney, who really hasn't had much of a glove laid on him yet, is at 47/29 favorables, and those negatives are likely to go up once he has a general election-sized target painted on his back.