Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has maintained a steady but small lead over Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist throughout the campaign, but not anymore.
According to poll aggregator RealClearPolitics, DeSantis’ lead previously sat at anywhere from 3 to 8 percentage points, with an average lead of 4-5 percentage points.
DeSantis’ lead has steadily grown in the last two weeks, with a Spectrum News/Siena poll showing him leading by 8 percent in the third week of September.
A newly released poll by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy shows DeSantis’s most significant lead yet, a double-digit lead of 11 percent.
If the polling lead holds and DeSantis wins by 11 points, it would be the largest margin of victory a Republican has ever had in a statewide race in Florida.
Ron Desantis has opened up an 11 point lead in his bid for re-election according to a poll from Mason-Dixon research. He won election by less than a point in 2018. If he wins by 11 or more it would be the biggest Republican win in a statewide race in modern Florida history.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 5, 2022
DeSantis’ polling numbers are just one of many indicators that he is on track to win re-election and build on his slim 2018 margin of 0.4% considerably.
The Governor has also posted impressive fundraising numbers, with $106 million in the bank heading into the final month of the election and outspending Crist by a factor of ten in television advertisements.
The Florida Governor’s approval ratings also bode well for him, with 55 percent of voters approving of his performance as Governor while 42 percent disapprove.
1/x DeSantis leads Crist by 11 percentage points in Mason-Dixon’s new FL poll
And there’s more:
✅DeSantis has $106 million banked — 27 times more than Crist’s $3.9m
✅DeSantis is outspending Crist on TV by a factor of more than 10 — $16m to about $1.6mhttps://t.co/Trte3weLJx
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) October 5, 2022
Political pundits predicted that DeSantis would lose support after he received a flurry of negative news coverage for transporting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in September. Instead, his lead has grown over his Democratic opponent.
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The Mason Dixon poll was conducted before Hurricane Ian, meaning that whether DeSantis’ lead holds, contracts, or expands will depend on if Floridians approve of leadership in the aftermath of the Hurricane.
“It will be important to see if he can maintain or improve it in the coming weeks, as his leadership will be tested by state attempts to repair and recover from the damage inflicted by Hurricane Ian,” A Mason Dixon pollster wrote in their report on the poll.
Some political pundits have speculated that DeSantis’ leadership during and after the Hurricane will boost his approval ratings as it pushes Crist out of the news cycle and puts the Governor in the spotlight.
3.
“DeSantis is going to be Gov. Hurricane for the next couple weeks. The disadvantage Crist has is 2-fold: he’s completely out of the news & he never managed a hurricane so he can’t stand up & point to what he did. So Crist is totally, totally defanged”https://t.co/Trte3weLJx— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) October 5, 2022
In another encouraging sign for Republicans in Florida, the Mason Dixon poll shows other statewide candidates posting double-digit leads, with Ashley Moody (Attorney General) leading by 13 percent, Jimmy Patronis (Chief Financial Officer) leading by 10 percent, and Wilton Simpson (Agricultural Commissioner) leading by 13 percent.
Other stories you may want to read:
Extraordinary Leadership of Gov. DeSantis Shines Through Gloom of Hurricane Ian
Democrats Politicize Hurricane Ian-Bash DeSantis
