The Political Matrix/The Listener Group poll results showed that Governor Ron DeSantis (R) was losing to both of his top two Democratic opponents. Compared to Charlie Crist (D) (57 percent), the governor rated only 43 percent. Part of that may be due to how he mishandled the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Almost 54 percent of Florida voters rank the governor’s performance unfavorable (34 percent) or very unfavorable. Those who considered DeSantis favorable in any way (43 percent) included 27 percent of that group who gave him a very favorable rating.
A third candidate Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) also put DeSantis underwater at 54 percent compared to 46 percent against her.
Senior Fried Advisor Kevin Cate said, according to The Florida Politics:
‘The most important number in this poll isn’t that Nikki Fried is leading DeSantis — it’s that DeSantis is underwater, with 53.8% of Floridians disapproving of his handling of COVID-19.’
‘It’s our hope that this prompts him to follow the lead of Commissioner Fried and basically every doctor in the state in publicly, repeatedly calling for Floridians to get vaccinated and to end his defunding of schools.’
Almost 90 percent of the Democratic voters indicated that they would choose Crist over DeSantis. A full 83 percent would select Fried over DeSantis. Conversely, 75 percent of Republicans want DeSantis over either Crist or Fried.
That breaks down with DeSantis winning 66 of the Republicans. The issue has been that Democrats have become more involved and now 66 percent gave him a poor rating.
Slightly more than half of the Independents gave DeSantis a positive rating. In addition, he took the majority of “no-party voters” in a contest against Fried or Crist.
Thus far, the promising former Police Chief Representative Val Demings (D-FL) at 45 percent has been losing against Senator Marco Rubio (R) (55 percent). Among Republicans, Independents, and Democrats Rubio continues to win. The Listener Group showed:
‘U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio ( R) is maintaining his lead against democratic challenger Val Demmings (sic) (55%-45%).  However, when it comes to the other races, we see a dramatic shift in the voters (sic) take on Governor Ron DeSantis’ handling of the pandemic as well as how he has lost a great deal of traction versus both Democrat opponents.’
‘When you look at the data on the following pages you will see that, as of today, the two democrat contenders (Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried) are stronger with their own party base than Ron DeSantis is with the Republican base.’
DeSantis led in June by double digits over either Democrat opponent.
The Political Matrix/The Listener Group had a +/- 3.1 percent margin of error among 1000 likely Florida voters. The interviewees were “Florida likely voters with a voting score of 100% for the primary and general election cycles.” The interviews were conducted via landlines between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Three White Lions podcast, Gloria Christie reads a chapter from her book of the same title. She also writes for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Gloria Christie Report her newsletter for people on the go. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor in a briefer version of Bipartisan Report. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in process). Find her here on Facebook.
