Alex Sink Leads David Jolly by 9%, Libertarian Lucas Overby at 12% in St. Leo Poll

The polls keep coming in the special congressional election to replace the late U.S. Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla.

St. Leo University released a poll on Thursday which shows former state CFO Alex Sink, the Democrat in the race, takes 46 percent while Republican David Jolly takes 37 percent and Libertarian Lucas Overby garners 12 percent. The Tampa Bay times released a poll on Wednesday night showing Sink with a smaller lead and St. Pete Polls and St. PetersBlog unveiled a poll on Thursday which had Jolly up by a small margin. Both of the other polls found Overby polling in single digits.

The St. Leo poll shows 88 percent of Democrats are backing Sink but only 64 percent of Republicans are behind Jolly as 16 percent of them are for Sink and 14 percent back Overby.

Ms. Sinks advantage is being driven by solid favorability ratings coupled with issue positions that seem to be more closely aligned with voter preferences than are Jollys, said Frank Orlando who teaches political science at Saint Leo. She overcomes a partisan ID disadvantage in the district by maintaining much higher favorability among Republicans and independents than Mr. Jolly does among Democrats. The fact that a Libertarian candidate has robust support levels in the double digits seems to be contributing to the size of Sinks lead.

Jolly is not only leaking Republican voters to Alex Sink, but also to David Overby, added Orlando. Traditionally, Libertarian candidates have siphoned off more support from Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, and this is the case here. Despite being outspent and advertised, Overbys presence in the televised debate has increased his visibility, but it remains to be seen if he can maintain this support to Election Day.

The poll of 400 likely voters was taken from Feb. 9-11 and had a margin of error of +/- 5 percent.