The Survey USA poll released on Wednesday shows Rick Scott with a narrow 45-43 percentage lead over Charlie Crist, with 8 percent of the vote going to "other." An educated guess would be that the 8 percent is actually for Libertarian candidate Adrian Wyllie, and certainly pollsters should stop doing surveys without his name being listed.The small lead isn't the only good news for Scott in this survey. For the first time in nine Survey USA tracking polls going back to April, the GOP incumbent has reached 50 percent support level among male voters.
The Scott team is also boasting about its combined fundraising totals for July. Though the Rick Scott for Florida campaign "only" raised $826,000 last month, his political action committee Let's Get To Work raised $4.24 million, and the Republican Party of Florida came through with another $5.85 million. That's just shy of $11 million.
That news drowned out a very proud press release from the Charlie Crist for Governor campaign earlier in the day, in which it was revealed that the Democratic candidate had raised the most money in a single month since he announced he was in the race, taking in $3.5 million in July. That's also the best July for any Democratic candidate in Florida. Ever. The Crist team is emphasizing that over 90 percent of the contributions to the campaign made since November have been $100 or less, evidence of the campaign's grassroots support.
"From the beginning we have said this is the People's Campaign. Our donors and volunteers are committed to electing Charlie Crist, the People's Governor, because they know the importance of having a Governor who will fight for them," said Campaign Manager Omar Khan. "People across Florida are invested in this campaign and we are so proud of our grassroots efforts."
It's been well documented that the financial advantage for Scott has allowed him to dominate the television airwaves in 2014, and what do you know: today the Scott campaign announced yet another new ad that will be running throughout the state. This one's called "Not a Penny," which dings Crist for saying that property taxes have gone up under Scott's watch.