No Surprises In Florida; Russell “Gets It” in Oklahoma; Arizona Results Roundup

Florida

The Florida primary proceeded as expected. Gov. Rick Scott won an 88 percent Republican victory; former Gov. Charlie Crist scored 74 percent on the Democratic side. With no US Senate race on the ballot this year, all of the contested federal action is in US House races. The eight challenged incumbents all broke 70 percent of the vote.

In the two congressional races of note, Miami Dade School Board member and former US Senate state director for interim Sen. George LeMieux (R), Carlos Curbelo, was an easy winner in the Miami-based 26th District. He earns the right to challenge freshman Rep. Joe Garcia (D) in what will be a highly competitive campaign.

Curbelo defeated four other Republicans, including former Rep. David Rivera who was attempting a comeback after being defeated in 2012, a result of several simultaneous scandals involving the freshman congressman and former state representative. Rivera managed to attract only eight percent of the vote last night. Curbelo topped the field with 47 percent,

Advertisement

Crist Running Well Among Democrats

It appears more probable that former Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist will attempt to regain his old job, but this time as a Democrat. And, if his personal approval ratings, as captured by the latest Quinnipiac University Florida poll, are accurate, then his chances of performing well before his new party voters are rapidly improving.

Crist, who was literally run out of the Republican senatorial primary by then-former state House Speaker Marco Rubio two years ago, ran poorly in the Senate race as an Independent and officially registered as a Democrat last week.

The new Q-Poll (Dec. 11-17; 1,261 registered Florida voters) gives Crist an overall 47:33 percent positive to negative personal favorability rating. Surprisingly, this is much better than 2010 nominee Alex Sink, who only lost to incumbent Gov. Rick Scott by just one percentage point. Ms. Sink’s favorability index was 27:14 percent, which yields a decent 2:1 positive ratio, but her name familiarity is much lower than one would have guessed about a person who ran in a major statewide contest in 2010 and had previously served in a statewide position, while twice attracting more than 2.5 million votes.

More confirming research will have to be presented before accepting the premise that Crist would be doing this well within his new party, especially in comparison to as accomplished a Democrat as Alex Sink.