Gov. Rick Scott leads U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., in what is expected to be one of the most important contests in the nation come November.
St. Leo University released a poll on Monday showing Scott taking 40 percent while Nelson pulls 36 percent. While 8 percent of those surveyed back other candidates, 15 percent remain undecided.
Scott gets strong marks in the poll with 61 percent viewing him as favorable while 31 percent see him as unfavorable.
“It appears as though Rick Scott's close association with the president won't hurt too much in the Sunshine State with around 50 percent of our respondents approving of the way Donald Trump is handling his duties,” said Frank Orlando, the polling director of the St. Leo University Polling Institute. “This is slightly higher than the president's approval nationwide.”
As Orlando noted, 50 percent of those surveyed approve of President Donald Trump though St. Leo failed to provide the percentage of voters who disapproved of him in their release sent out on Monday afternoon. Trump has endorsed Scott.
While Nelson does not have a primary challenge, Scott expected to prevail with ease in the GOP contest held next week. Scott faces businessman Rocky de la Fuente, a California resident who was the Reform Party’s presidential nominee in 2016. This year, de la Fuente has run in U.S. Senate primaries in nine states without achieving success in any of them. So far in 2018, de la Fuente has been blown out in Senate races in California, Washington, Hawaii, Vermont and Minnesota. He is running in the Wyoming primary this week and in Florida next week with contests in Rhode Island and Delaware waiting next month.
The poll of 500 Florida voters was taken from August 10 through August 16 and had a margin of error of +/ 4.5 percent.
