FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 4, 2010

AIF Poll Shows Rubio and Crist Nearly Even in U.S. Senate Race

TALLAHASSEE – Poll data released today by Associated Industries of Florida (AIF) shows Governor Charlie Crist’s and Former Speaker of the House Marco Rubio’s U.S. Senate race numbers nearly even.

Conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, a telephone survey of likely general election voters only slightly favors independent U.S. Senate candidate Gov. Crist over Republican candidate Rubio by 2 percentage points (38 percent versus 36 percent) when U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek is the Democratic challenger (16 percent of respondents indicated they would vote for Meek). If Jeff Greene was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, those numbers shift slightly with Gov. Crist and Rubio both earning 37 percent of the vote, and Greene earning 16 percent. In both scenarios, 10 percent of voters were undecided.

“This poll shows that Gov. Crist and Marco Rubio are pretty much head-to-head in the U.S. Senate race. Given these results, I believe that Rubio is perfectly positioned to win this election,” said Barney Bishop III, president and CEO of AIF. “If you look at the data, there are still a good percentage of Democrats and even Republicans who have indicated they are likely to vote for Crist. However, come Election Day, I anticipate they will vote with their parties and, ultimately, the Governor will not receive the number of votes projected right now.”

Conducted by McLaughlin & Associates between July 31 and August 1, 2010, the poll surveyed by telephone 600 randomly-selected, likely general election voters throughout Florida. It has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent and a 95 percent confidence interval. The live telephone interviews were conducted by professional interviewers.

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View the Poll Results...