Democrats are heading into the final six-week stretch before the midterms with leads in both of Florida’s crucial top-of-ticket races, according to a NBC News/Marist poll out Tuesday.
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson leads Republicans Gov. Rick Scott 48 percent to 45 percent among likely voters in the Senate race. Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum leads Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis by 5 points, 48 percent to 43 percent.
“The political environment in Florida, overall, is tipping in the Democrats favor,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said of the survey results.
Both races are closely-watched and highly-competitive. The Senate contest could prove decisive in which party takes control of the chamber, while the governor’s race pits a progressive vying to become the state’s first black governor against a diehard Trump ally.
The NBC/Marist results are in line with a number of other recent polls of likely Florida voters. Those surveys have showed Scott and Nelson in almost a dead heat, with Gillum more substantially edging out DeSantis.
A slight outlier is a Quinnipiac University poll released Monday that showed Nelson ahead of Scott 53 to 46 percent.
The NBC/Marist poll was conducted Sept. 16-20 among 600 likely voters. The margin of error is 4.7 percentage points.
