Florida Poll: Perry And Romney Tied, But Only One Locked With Obama

Mitt Romney
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Maybe “wait until Florida” will work this time?

Former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney was knocked from his frontrunner status in the GOP presidential primary by Texas Gov. Rick Perry a few weeks ago, but he’s starting to rebound. A recent Winthrop University poll found Romney to be moving back within striking distance in South Carolina, and a new poll out Wednesday from polling firm War Room Logistics shows that the two contenders are locked in Florida with one caveat: Romney is the only candidate in a statistical dead heat against President Obama in the state.

Romney and Perry are tied at 25 percent among Florida Republicans, with the rest of the field far behind in single digits. Within that number there is a battle between hard right conservatives and more moderate members of the party. The hardliners, those who described themselves as “very conservative,” go for Perry by about twelve points. This sends a large number of voters Perry’s way because they make up a large portion (over 41 percent) of the overall sample. But Romney leads with every other group, including by eight points within the “somewhat conservative” subsection, and by large margins among moderates and liberal Republicans, allowing Romney to piece together enough support to tie Perry.

But it seems that if the hard right conservatives get their way, it could prove problematic for Florida Republicans in the general election. Romney actually bests President Obama 45 – 44 in a FL matchup, but Perry loses 48 – 40, outside the margin of error in the poll.

As voters get to know Perry, he’s seen some push back in national polls. ABC News and the Washington Post also released a poll on Wednesday which showed that while Obama and Romney face split favorability ratings, Perry is actually underwater even as 46 percent of Americans in the survey didn’t have an opinion of him. ABC/WaPo showed that only 23 percent polled had a favorable view of Perry, versus 31 who had a negative one.

In Sen. Bill Nelson’s (D-FL) race for re-election to the US Senate, the new War Room Logistics poll showed a mixed bag of results. 50 percent of FL voters said that it’s time for someone new. But matchup Nelson up against any of the contenders for the seat and no one comes close. Even former GOP Senator George LeMieux (R-FL) sees poor results against Nelson, with only 25 percent ready to vote for the Republican as Nelson gets 42 percent, with many left undecided.

The War Room Logistics poll used 1,406 automated telephone interviews with likely Florida voters conducted on September 20th and has a sampling error of 3 percent. The sub-sample of 572 Florida Republican voters has a sampling error of 4 percent. The ABC/WaPo poll used 1,013 live telephone interviews with American adults conducted from September 14th to the 18th with a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

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