For a couple of years now, Florida and its 27 electoral votes have been at the center of the political universe. Bush travels to the state constantly, his brother is the state’s governor, and Karl Rove described the Sunshine State in August as “ground zero” in next year’s campaign.
At this point, however, it appears the race in Florida isn’t even particularly close. A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Bush with strong support in the state and enormous leads over his Dem rivals. (Hey Tom, maybe you were right about Florida after all)
The poll showed that 54 percent approve of Bush’s handling of the war on terrorism and 52 percent approve of his handling of the economy. These are only moderately strong numbers, but they are better for Bush than similar results in national polls.
More importantly, Florida voters, by wide margins, are apparently prepared to back Bush next November. In a hypothetical general election match-up, Bush led Lieberman 56 percent to 36 percent, and Lieberman did the best of the bunch. The poll also showed Bush leading Gephardt 58 percent to 36 percent, Dean 59 percent to 36 percent, and Kerry by 57 percent to 34 percent. (The same poll apparently didn’t do a match-up of Bush vs. Clark)
Speaking of the Democratic field, the same poll asked Dem voters for their preference in the race for the nomination, which has opened up in Florida with the departure of Bob Graham from the race. (margin of error +/-5%)
Lieberman — 21 percent
Dean — 17 percent
Clark — 14 percent
Gephardt — 11 percent
Kerry — 6 percent
and everyone else below 5 percent
I believe there’s still a lot of fluidity to these numbers. The Florida primary is in early-March and candidates have not really begun introducing themselves to the state’s voters. Indeed, Lieberman led the field with 21 percent support, but even he trailed “undecided,” which received 23 percent. I’d argue that any of these five can make a serious run for Florida’s primary.