CNN Florida poll has good news for Gillum, Nelson – maybe too good
Andrew Gillum is way ahead and Bill Nelson is leading in the latest big-name poll of Florida voters.
But the CNN poll doesn’t mean Democrats should celebrate or Republicans despair. The numbers may not be as good as advertised for Democrats Gillum and Nelson or as bad for Republicans Ron DeSantis or Rick Scott.
In the governor’s race, the CNN poll conducted Tuesday through Saturday shows Gillum with support from 54 percent of likely voters to 42 percent for DeSantis. That’s a 12 percentage point advantage for Gillum.
In the U.S. Senate race, CNN has Nelson leading Scott among likely voters, 50 percent to 45 percent. That’s a Nelson lead of 5 points.
CNN has the famous brand name, but its poll might be overstating support for the Democratic candidates and understating support for the Republicans.
Another survey, from SEA Polling & Strategic Design, which generally polls for Democrats, found closer contests.
In the governor’s race, SEA found 48 percent for Gillum to 42 percent for DeSantis among registered voters.
In the Senate race, SEA found Scott leading Nelson, 47 percent to 45 percent among registered voters.
The poll from SEA was conducted from Wednesday through Saturday.
Gillum, the Democratic candidate for governor, is currently the mayor of Tallahassee. Republican DeSantis was serving his third term as a member of Congress from northeast Florida until he
resigned last month to campaign full time.
The candidates met for their first debate Sunday night.
Democrat Nelson is seeking a fourth term in the U.S. Senate. Republican Gov. Rick Scott can’t run for a third term as governor because of term limits, so he is running against Nelson.
Bolstering the CNN numbers was a Quinnipiac University Poll of the Senate race released on Monday. The poll found Nelson with 52 percent support among likely voters to 46 percent for Scott.
Quinnipiac hasn’t released results in the governor’s race.
Among the reasons to be cautious about the CNN numbers:
Trump response — The CNN survey found more Florida voters disapprove (50 percent) than approve (42 percent) of President Donald Trump’s performance, a net negative of 8 percentage points.
That’s not unusual. Virtually every public opinion poll shows more disapproval than approval for the president.
What is unusual is the comparison to the national average. RealClearPolitics reports the average of national polls shows 52 percent
disapproval and 44 percent approval of Trump, a net negative of 8 points.
That’s strikingly similar to the percentages CNN reported in Florida. Throughout his presidency, Trump has had notably higher favorable percentages and lower unfavorable percentages in Florida than the nation.
The Quinnipiac Poll reported Trump’s approval at 46 percent positive to 51 percent negative.
Hurricane Michael — The disruptions in electricity and phone service caused by the hurricane in the Panhandle – strong Republican territory — might change the composition of the people polled. It’s impossible to know how many Panhandle voters won’t participate in this year’s election.
Methodology. The CNN survey asked people to describe their affiliations, with 32 percent Democrats, 29 percent Republican, and 39 percent independent.
The DeSantis campaign said the methodology of the poll is seriously flawed, which “renders the finding useless.”
The campaign said the sample “has more Independent voters than Democrats or Republicans and more Democrats than Republicans. However, in the 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 general elections more Republicans voted than Democrats or Independents.”
Stephen Lawson, a DeSantis spokesman, said in a written statement that the poll shows “why so many Americans believe that CNN peddles fake news.”
CNN said its mix of Democrats, Republicans and voters who have no party affiliation or are members of a third party “almost exactly matches” the state’s registered voters.
Outlier. Some polls are considered “outliers” by political professionals, meaning that for a variety of reasons they don’t get a good sample and the conclusions raise skepticism. Some political analysts have suggested the CNN poll might be an outlier.
Until the CNN poll released Sunday, the RealClearPolitics polling average had Gillum and DeSantis just 1 percentage point apart, with 45.3 percent for Gillum and 44.3 percent for DeSantis. Without CNN, the RealClearPolitics average in the Senate race had Scott and Nelson tied at 46.3 percent.
It’s possible that there’s been a big recent surge toward Gillum and Nelson, or the CNN poll could be an outlier.
The cable network acknowledged those possibilities in an article it published Monday about the poll. “The CNN findings could be an outlier -- a statistical
anomaly which occurs in polling by random chance. It also could be an indicator of renewed Democratic enthusiasm.”
The fine print
In the CNN poll, the research company SSRS used live callers to reach 769 likely voters by phone from Tuesday through Saturday. For likely voters, the pollster said the margin of error
was plus or minus percentage points.
SEA said it used live callers to reach 600 registered voters and said its margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Quinnipiac surveyed 1,161 likely voters from
Wednesday through Sunday using live callers. It reported a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.