Exclusive poll: U.S. Senate seat up for grabs

It’s a very close race for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat, and candidates have been out in full swing vying for every last vote.

With the August 24 primary election looming, many are looking ahead to predict who will fill that open seat after the general election on November 2.

Will it be Governor Charlie Crist – running with no party affiliation?

Conservative Republican and former state Speaker of the House Marco Rubio?

Or, it could be one of the two Democrats engaged in a fierce primary battle – Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene.

According to a Bay News 9/St. Petersburg Times statewide exclusive poll, Crist holds a slight edge over his opponents in every possible scenario.

However, the numbers also show that Crist would have a narrower lead margin if businessman Jeff Greene wins the Democratic primary.

Bay News 9’s political analysts Republican Chris Ingram and Democrat Betty Castor weighed in on the Greene situation.

"It appears that he does a little better in that general election contest than Meek would do,” said Castor. “And it appears, Charlie Crist loses a very small amount. I'm sure all of this is within the margin of error."

Out of the Democratic registered voters polled, more seemed to favor Greene, with 35 percent compared to Meek’s 31 percent – although 30 percent remain undecided.

"Well, those people that haven't made up their mind yet just a week and a half before the election, they are kind of volatile in the sense you really can't predict what they are going to do,” said Ingram. “They'll be heavily influenced by television, which is certainly going to benefit Greene because he's going to be on TV a lot more than Kendrick Meek’s going to be able to afford to do."

According to director of Ipsos Public Affairs Julia Clark, voters responded that while they connected more with Meek, they think Greene is better equipped to deal with the poor economy – which 65 percent said is the biggest problem facing Florida.

Money does seem to be a key issue in this campaign, both in buying advertisements and when it comes to the large issues.

"Well, they’re close. You would think that someone like Congressman Meek, who’s been in office for a long time and was out there almost a year without opposition, would be far ahead,” said Castor. “So if there's a surprise, it's that the race is so close and that Jeff Greene is slightly ahead."

The candidate who most benefits from Greene’s lead in the polls is Marco Rubio, as this scenario makes a closer race between Crist and Rubio, according to Clark.

Check Bay News 9 and BayNews9.com for more exclusive polls throughout the weekend.

Poll Information

The telephone survey of 602 registered voters was conducted August 6-10 for the St. Petersburg Times, Miami Herald, Bay News 9 and Central Florida News 13. The poll was done by Ipsos Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based independent, nonpartisan research company. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points overall, 6.4 percentage points for questions based only on Democrats and 5.9 for those based only on Republicans.