Bill Nelson Seeks More Money, Connie Mack Questions Polls

The campaign for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando, quickly sent out a call for more contributions after announcing they lagged behind the fundraising efforts of U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fort Myers, between July 1 and Sept. 1.

Our opponent's contributions appear to be from deep-pocketed special interests who are trying to influence this election -- the message from Nelson for theSenate, Campaign Manager Pete Mitchell stated on Thursday.

Nelson reported raising $2.3 million to the $2.7 million Macks campaign had announced on Wednesday for the quarter.

Raising $2.7 million is the best fundraising quarter weve had in this campaign. We could not be in a better position for the final stretch of this race, Mack's Campaign Manager Jeff Cohen stated in a release.

Cohen added that the fundraising reflects a tighter race than media-sponsored public polls have indicated.

On Thursday, an NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll put the race at 52-to-39 in favor of Nelson.

Cohen called the poll utter nonsense.

This poll was weighted to reflect a likely electorate comprised of 37 percent Democrats, 33 percent Republicans and 29 percent Independents," Cohen stated in a release.

By comparison, the 2004 exit poll data showed an electorate comprised of 41 percent Republican, 37 percent Democrat, 21 percent Independent.

Does any credible independent political professional or analyst truly believe the partisan composition of this Marist poll will actually reflect the make-up of the electorate on November 6th? I think not.

If the current absentee ballot data in Florida is any indicator, turnout in the 2012 election will skew heavily Republican. Thus far in Florida, 43.4 percent of absentee ballot requests came from Republicans, 39 percent from Democrats. More importantly, Republicans have an even larger advantage in returned absentee ballots: 45.5 percent to 38 percent.

Even if you weight current polls to reflect an evenly balanced partisan make-up of 40 percent Republican, 40 percent Democrat and 20 percent Independent, the race between Connie Mack and Bill Nelson is an absolute dead heat a fact that continues to be reinforced in our ongoing internal polling.

Its important to note, no malicious intent should be attributed to this Marist poll or other media-sponsored polls that continue to weight polling results for nonsensical voter models. Rather, this continues to reinforce the fact that most media-sponsored polls simply do not understand the history of voter performance, which means they simply cannot accurately model voter behavior this November.