Florida Atlantic University released a new poll of next year’s infrequently surveyed Senate and gubernatorial races in the Sunshine State, and they found a tight Senate race between Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who appears to be a likely candidate despite not officially declaring yet. Nelson bests Scott just 42-40, which is consistent with mid-March polls from GOP firm Cherry Communications and St. Leo University that also found Nelson modestly aheadby 48-42 and 39-34, respectively. Scott has previously said he’s in no rush to decide, and with millions in personal wealth at his disposal, he can likely afford to wait to jump into the campaign.
FAU also tested the brewing gubernatorial primaries for both parties and unsurprisingly found roughly half of voters in each contest were undecided, meaning both races are far from settled. Among Republicans, state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam led with 27 percent, followed by state House Speaker Richard Corcoran at 10 percent, Rep. Ron DeSantis at 9 percent, and state Sen. Jack Latvala at a mere 2 percent. Only Putnam and Latvala are official candidates so far, but Corcoran and DeSantis have both expressed interest in the race before.
On the Democratic side, multi-millionaire trial attorney John Morgan takes first with 19 percent compared to 14 percent for former Rep. Gwen Graham, 9 percent for Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, 8 percent for Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine, and just 4 percent for real estate company owner Chris King. Graham, Gillum, and King are the only announced candidates of the bunch, but Levine looks likely to jump into the race by a self-imposed November deadline, while Morgan says he could wait until 2018 to reach a decision about running.