Lenny Curry's Team: Poll Shows Momentum Against Alvin Brown

The team behind former Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) Chairman Lenny Currys effort to defeat incumbent Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown weighed in on the University of North Florida (UNF) poll released on Thursday and they are pleased with the results.

Tim Baker from Data Targeting Research, a general consultant to the Curry campaign, penned a memo on Thursday in which he looked at the results:

UNF just released the results of a poll they conducted related to the upcoming Marchmayoral election and the results are not good for Mayor Brown. I wanted to give you abrief overview of the findings before you hear the spin that Brown and his allies will startpeddling.

The most important number in this survey is 37 percent. After Alvin Brown and the FloridaDemocratic Party have spent nearly $2 million on his campaign to date, Brown is onlypulling 37 percent of the vote in the March election. That is down nearly 10 points from asimilar poll about 12 months ago (UNF poll, Feb 2014).

It cannot be overstated how bad a number 37 percent is for an incumbent mayor who is weeksaway from facing voters and who previously enjoyed an approval rating in UNF polls higherthan 70 percent. UNF makes it clear in their analysis that an approval rating for Brown isnttranslating into votes for the mayor. Additionally, Browns efforts to pretend he isconservative are not being believed by the likely voters. According to the poll, 43 percent see
Brown as a liberal and only 14 percent see him as conservative. Another poor indicator forBrown is 41 percent of voters dont think he is a strong leader.

Lenny Curry is in a strong position and the candidates below him show no signs ofpolitical life. They both lack the necessary resources to get in front of the voters betweennow and the election. As other polls have demonstrated for months, other candidatesconsistently total between 10 and 12 percent, and UNF shows the same.

Lenny has very strong numbers with voters who know who he is (+8 on being a strongleader). As UNFs memo makes clear, there is still a sizable portion of the electorate that isjust getting to know Lenny and has yet to form an opinion. The Curry campaign is in a goodposition to see growth with these voters who are ideologically aligned with Lenny.

The path to victory for Lenny is clear and the campaign is focused on closing stronglyduring these last few weeks. While fundraising continues to be an important part of thestrategy in the coming weeks, the ground game base that has been laid is also criticallyimportant to the campaigns success. On average there are 7,000 plus calls made daily topreviously identified likely voters, and the door-to-door campaign is far surpassing the goalsset by our initial strategy. Lenny and the team have made contact with over 50,000 likelyvoter households to date. Our volunteer and grassroots team is the strongest amongst anycampaign and the final weeks will only see momentum continue to build around Lennysvision for a greater Jacksonville at the perfect time when voters are beginning to truly tune into the election.

Staying focused and on course is the tone Lenny has set for the team and he continues tolead us forward with drive, commitment and energy.