Bush widens lead in final days; JEB 51% McBride 43%

Miami Herald ^ | 10/27/2002 | The Miami Herald

[Mollygal]

Bush widens lead in final days Education initiatives have good chance BY TYLER BRIDGES tbridges@herald.com

By convincing enough voters in recent days that Bill McBride is a tax-and-spend liberal, Gov. Jeb Bush has stopped McBride's momentum and slightly broadened his lead over his challenger nine days prior to the Nov. 5 election, a new poll shows.

Bush leads McBride 51 percent to 43 percent in The Herald/St. Petersburg Times poll, up slightly from a 50 to 44 advantage four weeks ago. In each poll, 6 percent of respondents were undecided.

The earlier poll showed McBride gaining on Bush, and his strategists argued that he was well-positioned to overtake the governor because 33 percent of those polled did not yet have an opinion on McBride.

But the new poll shows that as voters form an opinion of the challenger, they don't like what they see, especially on taxes.

Pollster Kellyanne Conway credits Bush's recent line of attack: that McBride will have to raise taxes to pay for the education initiatives he supports.

''We have seen an aggressive and vigorous ad campaign by Gov. Bush trying to remove people's excitement about McBride as the education candidate and to tag him as a tax candidate,'' Conway said. ``Bill McBride didn't do much to respond to that [in television ads] or in the debate Tuesday night.''

Added pollster Rob Schroth: ``Without a dramatic movement in the campaign, Bush is poised for a narrow victory.''

Conway, who typically polls for Republicans, conducted the poll with Schroth, who has polled for Democrats. They surveyed 800 randomly selected people statewide who are both registered and likely to vote. The poll was conducted Wednesday through Friday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The Herald/St. Petersburg Times poll showed a dead heat in the other two statewide campaigns, with Education Commissioner Charlie Crist at 41 percent and state Sen. Buddy Dyer at 40 percent in the race for attorney general, and librarian David Nelson tied at 38 percent with Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson in the race for Bronson's job.

Last month's poll also had Crist and Dyer in a tie, indicating that that race is up for grabs. Last month's poll had Bronson trailing by seven points, so the new numbers indicate that he has the momentum in his race. Crist and Bronson are Republicans, Dyer and Nelson Democrats.

[lstanle]

"Bush widens lead in final days; JEB 51% McBride 43% Miami Herald ^ | 10/27/2002 | The Miami Herald"

This is good news. I just visited the McBride for governor website and they are touting some poll taken with two weeks to go until the election that shows McBride ahead as "HOT NEWS", But their hot button to "The Latest Opinion Poll" seems to be our of order, ie, not working, not showing that Jeb is now 8 points ahead and building momentum. Go Jeb