Posted on 03/28/2006 9:27:24 PM PST by LdSentinal
TAMPA - A new poll shows U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson maintaining a lead of 16 percentage points over potential challenger Katherine Harris, a lead unchanged despite problems that have plagued Harris' campaign.
At the same time, voters are seeing Nelson's performance in office in a more positive light. His job approval ratings have gone well over 50 percent, an unprecedented level in this poll.
Pollster Brad Coker said that's probably because Nelson has avoided a high profile on divisive national issues recently, concentrating instead on state issues, and because he's coming out of the shadow of former Sen. Bob Graham.
Numbers Virtually Unchanged The poll, done by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. for the Tribune and News Channel 8, tapped opinions of 621 registered Florida voters in phone calls March 21-23, with an error margin of 4 percentage points.
It shows Nelson, the incumbent Democrat who's running for re-election in November, leading Republican challenger Harris by 51 percent to 35 percent, with 14 percent undecided.
That's virtually unchanged from June 2005, when the same poll showed Nelson leading 53 percent to 36 percent, with 11 percent undecided; or October 2005, when it was 52-37, with 11 percent undecided.
Also nearly unchanged, despite a wave of negative publicity for Harris, are voters' favorable and unfavorable opinions of both candidates.
Asked whether they recognize Harris' name and have a favorable opinion of her, 29 percent of the respondents said favorable, 31 percent said unfavorable, 27 percent said neutral, and 13 percent didn't recognize her name.
Those totals differ from Harris' June 2005 numbers by no more than the margin of error of the poll, meaning they were statistically unchanged.
Nelson's ratings, also virtually unchanged, are 46 percent favorable, 14 percent unfavorable and 34 percent neutral, with 6 percent not recognizing his name.
What did change was a figure of importance to Nelson: his job approval rating, meaning the number of voters who said his performance in office is "excellent" or "good" rather than "only fair" or "poor."
In the past year or so, Nelson's job approval rating has hovered just under 50 percent in most polls, leading Republicans to say he was vulnerable to a re-election challenge.
Nelson got a 47 percent job approval rating in a February poll by Strategic Vision Inc. of Atlanta, a Republican-oriented political polling firm. Polls by the independent Quinnipiac University gave him similar numbers in June and August.
The new poll shows him with 57 percent approval, higher than he has ever been in the Mason-Dixon poll and similar to approval ratings Gov. Jeb Bush had in past Strategic Vision and Mason-Dixon polls.
He'll Just Keep Doing The Job Nelson displayed a front-runner's confidence reacting to the poll.
"The only poll that counts is on Election Day, which is seven months from now," he said. "Meantime, I'm just going to keep doing the job people first elected me to do."
His campaign manager, Chad Clanton, added, "We take nothing for granted. We're fueling up the jet, and we're going to be ready for whatever they throw at us."
The Harris campaign did not back off on its claim that Nelson can be taken down.
"Clearly this poll indicates that Nelson remains vulnerable," said Harris spokeswoman Morgan Dobbs, noting that favorable perceptions of Nelson remain below 50 percent.
She repeated the campaign's charge that Nelson is too liberal for Florida voters.
Other Republicans also said Nelson can be attacked for opposing such moves as the Bush tax cuts.
"The race clearly needs to shift focus to be on Sen. Nelson, the incumbent," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
The consistent figures in the poll indicate the wave of negative publicity about Harris in the past few weeks - over illegal campaign contributions and key staff leaving - has affected few voters other than political activists, said Managing Director Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon.
The "unreported story," Coker said, is that "under the radar screen, Nelson's been shoring up his image with the home folks.
"He's stayed out of the sharply divisive issues that are dominating cable TV news, Iraq, immigration, domestic spying."
Instead, he has been shown opposing an expansion of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and arguing to protect Navy operations in Mayport, Coker said.
"Bill Nelson's going to be a hard guy to beat no matter who the Republicans put up," he said.
Nelson, Coker noted, now is senior senator from Florida, after four years as junior senator to Graham, now retired. That has allowed Nelson to take a higher profile and get more attention on issues of his choice.
Interesting how the KH die-hard supporters go deafeningly quiet in these threads.
Oh please, gimme a break. I can dig deep in my ass for poll numbers too.
"She can win it. All you nay-sayers are just RINOs. If I listened to them, I would have never had become senator of the great state of Illinois." - Alan Keyes
Could make the thread more interesting, don't you think?
Of course. Put up the pictures
So you think Harris is ahead in the polls?
Who cares about the polls? In general, the Republicans are unmotivated in this mid-term election. So if we just hold our lines, that's a big achievement.
I'm pretty sure no one is interested in my picture.
How about a lovely picture of Bill Nelson on a horse?
http://images.spaceref.com/news/2004/04pd1563-s.jpg
Now take that and put < to the left of it. Then put img src=" to the right of the <. Now go all the way over to the end and put this ">
Or are you just being coy? :)
Yeah and casey is now up just 10 grantholm is tied and fast eddie is just barely ahead. Once the beltway "experts" get out of Harris's way and she starts telling people about the wooden indian's 14% lifetime Am.Con. Union rating and his very high rating as a liberal, she will close the gap and win. Remember nobody but beltway "experts" cares about what happened in 2000 and 1100 new people come into Fla every day. They are not coming to vote Democrat. Last year the Fla GOP registered 50,000 new voters and the rat registered 3640. You do the math all you people who think Harris won't will.
Steamroller bait does not a good candidate make.
These polls are fabricated by none other than the same FL newsrags who smeared Harris from day one.
How can anyone be surprised?
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