The second poll released in the space of a week suggests that it would be a mighty interesting race if Florida Gov. Rick Scott, R, were to challenge three-term Sen. Bill Nelson, D, in 2018. Mason-Dixon finds that Nelson, at 46 percent, holds a modest early lead over Scott, who draws 41 percent support.
An earlier poll by the University of North Florida found a similar 44 to 38 percent result in testing the hypothetical but perhaps likely matchup between the three-term incumbent senator and the term-limited governor. This poll, like that one, was conducted in the second half of February.
Nelson (42%) and Scott (41%) are viewed favorably by roughly the same number of state voters. However, Scott has considerably higher negatives (38%) while Nelson is undefined or unrecognized by a large number of them (33%) despite his long political career.
In case you were wondering, Trump’s favorables (43 percent) and unfavorables (48 percent) in this poll beat both Nelson’s and Scott’s.
The Mason-Dixon memo adds that the poll ran a generic test between “a Democratic Senate candidate to help block the Trump agenda” and “a Republican Senate candidate to help enact it. The result was a 47 to 45 percent split in favor of the Democrat. That has to offer some additional hope to Scott, a close Trump ally whom the new president has encouraged to run.
The polling memo concludes, I think correctly, that it’s all going to come down to whether Trump and his agenda are perceived as successful next year. By this fall, that could be what pushes Scott either to get into a race he can win, or else to decide he has better things to do with his life.
