Crist Leads Davis By 15 Points, Poll Shows

By WILLIAM MARCH and MICHAEL FECHTER The Tampa Tribune

Published: Sep 27, 2006

TAMPA - A new poll in the Florida governor race shows discouraging news for Democratic candidate Jim Davis, the congressman from Tampa: a 15-point gap between himself and Republican Charlie Crist, the state's attorney general, and a relatively little-known name among Florida voters.

The poll shows Crist and his running mate, Jeff Kottkamp, leading Davis and running mate Daryl Jones by 51 percent to 36 percent, with 11 percent undecided and other candidates totaling 2 percent.

That means Davis has a lot of ground to make up on Crist and comparatively little time before the Nov. 7 election and with little money compared with Crist's fundraising juggernaut.

Republicans exulted over the new Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey, done for the Tribune and other Florida news agencies.

Democrats said Davis, who has been absent from television screens since the Sept. 5 primary, will start running advertising within a week and that Davis has better stances on top issues, including home insurance and education.

"Folks are ready for change," Davis said. "For eight years Charlie Crist failed to do anything to ease the crush of property taxes on homeowners and business owners. It's too late to start talking about it just as a candidate."

The poll surveyed 625 likely voters in phone calls Sept. 20-22, with an error margin of 4 percentage points.

The Crist campaign, clearly seeking to avoid sounding overconfident, had little to say. Spokeswoman Erin Isaac said it "provides further encouragement that Charlie Crist's positive message of hope, safety and opportunity is resonating with Floridians." She said polls don't matter until Election Day.

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Thurman said once Davis and Jones get their message out, "you'll start to see this whole thing flip around. We have our plan, and we're executing our plan as we intended to."

Davis said other recent polls have shown tighter margins. Polls done Aug. 28 by Rasmussen Research and Sept. 11-13 by Survey USA both show Crist with narrow single-digit leads over Davis.

The state Chamber of Commerce announced a poll Tuesday with results virtually identical to Mason-Dixon's: 51 percent for Crist, 37 percent for Davis and 12 percent undecided, with a 3-point error margin.

The Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polls use recorded messages instead of human callers, a method some experts consider less reliable.

"You put all the polls together, we're in the margin of error," Davis said Tuesday during a campaign appearance in Gainesville with former primary opponent Rod Smith. "Folks are ready for change."

In the chamber's poll, 47 percent of respondents said Florida was headed in the "wrong direction" and 39 percent said the "right direction."

Nevertheless, Gov. Jeb Bush - whose name Crist continually invokes - remained popular, with a 63 percent approval rating.

Smith offered support, saying polls underestimated his performance against Davis in the primary, which he ended up losing to Davis by 6 points.

"It will tighten up, and this is going to be a horse race," he said.

That could happen, but it will be tough, said Mason-Dixon pollster Brad Coker.

He said Crist won a majority in the poll and that 19 percent of the respondents didn't know Davis' name, compared with 2 percent for Crist.

"Davis' profile is very low, and Crist is beating him primarily on just visibility and familiarity," Coker said.

"He needs a lot of money, and he needs to be on television as quickly as possible."

Crist, Coker said, had a better outcome in his primary race against Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, winning by an unexpectedly large margin.

"Crist has been on TV ever since, whereas we haven't heard from Davis since the primary," Coker said.

About 1 in 4 Democrats in the poll supported Crist, and only 1 in 20 Republicans crossed party lines to back Davis.

Regional results also suggest how far Davis has to go:

•In the two candidates' home turf, the Tampa Bay area and the central and southern Gulf Coast, Crist led Davis 55 percent to 32 percent.

•In Southeast Florida, with its large, predominantly Democratic counties of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach, Davis led Crist. But his margin there, 48 percent to 41 percent, was not as large as a Democrat usually needs to win a statewide race in Florida.

Results from one region or voters from one party would have larger error margins than results for all respondents.

Reporter William March can be reached at wmarch@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7761.