Tag Archives: St. Pete Polls

Special Election Today in FL-19

The eighth special US House election since the inception of the current 113th Congress begins today. Voters in southwest Florida’s 19th Congressional District will choose nominees for the June 24 special general election.

Today’s action is exclusively in the Republican primary as four candidates battle to become the GOP standard bearer, hoping to succeed resigned Rep. Trey Radel (R). The eventual Republican nominee will face public relations executive April Freeman, who is unopposed in today’s special Democratic primary.

The 19th District, anchored in the cities of Ft. Myers, Cape Coral, Naples, and Marco Island, is solidly Republican. Mitt Romney defeated President Obama here in 2012 by a solid 61-39 percent count despite losing the state 49-50 percent. Four years earlier, John McCain commanded 57 percent support against then-Sen. Obama’s 42 percent. Prior to Radel winning the newly constructed and re-numbered 19th District in the last general election, the region was consecutively represented by GOP Reps. Connie Mack IV (R-FL-14), Porter Goss (R-FL-14), and Connie Mack III (R-FL-13), since its original creation in 1982.
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Jolly’s Advantage in Florida

It’s been the stated conventional wisdom that former Florida Chief Financial Officer and 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink would sail to a comfortable win in the March 11 special general election to replace the late Rep. Bill Young (R-FL-13). Since the Jan. 14 primary, however, two polls have been released projecting that Republican David Jolly holds a discernible lead.

The first survey, from St. Pete Polls as we reported last week, staked Jolly to a 47-43 percent advantage, but we illustrated that the respondent universe contained an over-sampling of Republicans. In the latest poll, from McLaughlin & Associates (Jan. 16-19; 400 registered FL-13 voters) for the Jolly campaign, the same flaw exists. Largely as a result, the McLaughlin data yields a 43-38% Jolly lead.

The district voter registration is: 37 percent Republican, 35 percent Democrat and 24 percent Independent. The McLaughlin sample pull was comprised of 42 percent Republican voters, 35 percent Democrats, and 16 percent Independents. Therefore, increasing the Republican share by five full  Continue reading >