Gillum has slight edge in FAU poll
Democrat leads GOP’s Ron DeSantis in at least seven polls in recent weeks.
After defying the pollsters to win Florida’s Democratic primary for governor last month, Andrew Gillum has become the toast of the polling crowd in early surveys of the nationally watched general election race against Republican Ron DeSantis.
Gillum, who did not lead in any publicly released polls before his stunning Aug. 28 primary win, is the narrow leader in at least seven general election polls released over the last three weeks. Most of the polls — including a Florida Atlantic University survey released Wednesday — put Tallahassee Mayor Gillum’s lead within the margin of error.
Primary polls that failed to detect Gillum’s late surge also tended to underestimate DeSantis, who won the GOP gubernatorial nomination by 19.9 points after some surveys suggested a closer race against Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam.
One prognosticator who nailed the Republican primary result was President Donald Trump, who endorsed DeSantis in June. During an Aug. 21 rally in West Virginia, Trump boasted that DeSantis was “leading by like 19 points.”
While primary polls were all over the map in Florida, general election surveys so far have been fairly consistent in showing tight races for governor and for the U.S. Senate seat between Republican Gov. Rick Scott and three-term Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.
Florida Atlantic University political science professor Kevin Wagner said general election polls are usually more accurate than primary polls.
“We have a much better understanding of who turns out in general elections ,” Wagner said. “There’s a consistency and pattern of turnout that’s much more predictable. Primaries are much more volatile.”
FAU had Gillum a distant third in the Democratic field and DeSantis virtually tied with Putnam in the GOP race in a poll released the week before the Aug. 28 primaries. FAU’s new poll shows Gillum holding a 41-to-39 percent lead over DeSantis in a sample with a 3.3 percentage point margin of error.
FAU’s latest poll also shows a virtual tie in the Senate race, with Scott leading by 1 percentage point after holding a 6-point edge in an August FAU poll.
In another sign of slippage for the GOP, FAU’s new poll finds 39 percent of Florida voters approving of Trump’s job performance and 47 percent disapproving. That compares to 43 percent approval and 45 percent disapproval in FAU’s August poll.
Survey USA and Gravis Marketing, which both had Gillum a distant fourth in their fifinal polls before the Democratic primary, have also released general election surveys that give the Democratic nominee a slight lead over DeSantis.
Gillum also holds slender early leads in general election polls by Reuters/Ipsos, Quinnipiac University and Rasmussen — pollsters who avoided the mosh pit of Florida primary surveys.
Survey USA President Jay Leve said his firm and other pollsters weren’t necessarily wrong about Gillum before the Democratic primary. Survey USA’s final pre-primary poll, released two weeks ahead of the election, showed Gwen Graham and Philip Levine tied for the Democratic lead at 22 percent apiece, billionaire Palm Beach real estate investor Jeff Greene next at 16 percent and Gillum in fourth at 11 percent.
Leve said there was “actually a phenomenon” of liberals breaking late to Gillum after an Aug. 1 endorsement by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Aug. 17 campaign appearances with Sanders and a late infusion of cash and other help from Tom Steyer and other donors.
“That was a true accomplishment that all pollsters missed .... It is beyond polling’s ability to see what is happening at the last minute when there is profound change,” Leve said.
St. Pete Polls seemed to get a hint of the late movement to Gillum. In a poll released Aug. 26, the firm showed Gillum climbing from third place the week before to second place with 25 percent, which was still 7 points behind Graham.
Results in Palm Beach County, the state’s third-largest jurisdiction, offer partial evidence of a late Gillum surge. Gillum trailed Graham and Levine in early voting and mail-in ballots in the county but handily won on ballots cast on election day.
“That movement for Gillum happened really late, and there was no way for us to capture that,” said FAU’s Wagner.
Democratic pollster Tom Eldon had Gillum in third place in a poll conducted Aug. 19-21. Eldon said his poll was off because he surveyed voters with a history of voting in primaries and midterm elections, which is normally an effective screen for a low-turn-out primary.
But, Eldon said, Gillum “was very successful at bringing voters into the primary who are not typically in the Democratic primary voting universe. All of those voters were voting in one direction.”
Considering the primary and other factors, Survey USA’s Leve said his firm has tried to come up with a general election turnout model that accurately reflects the enthusiasm of Gillum backing progressives and “ardent Trump supporters” in the GOP.
Pollsters in Florida, Leve said, face a continuous challenge to reflect “the best learning and best attempts to measure what is a polyglot state with many, many competing regional and ethnic groups.”