First look at Florida’s Governor’s race
Bottom Line: If you placed a bet on an offshore gambling service for a Gillum vs DeSantis match-up a couple of months ago you’re probably doing pretty well today. Because few in the “professional” politicking world viewed this match-up as a possibility, next to nobody has polled on this possibility. While we await the first post-election polling on this race we do have one accredited poll to draw from that was conducted about a month ago from Gravis. This was around the time of the Bernie Sanders endorsement for Gillum at the onset of his momentum that carried him to the impressive win on Tuesday. Here’s what the survey said...
DeSantis: 39%
Gillum: 36%
For some on the right this might come as a surprise. I’ve heard from several conservatives that they think the race should be in the bag because Gillum’s so far left but assumptions and elections are never good formulas. Hillary Clinton was going to sail to the nomination in 2008 until Barak Obama beat her. Republicans didn’t even take Rick Scott seriously until he won the party’s nomination for Governor in 2010. And I certainly don’t need to point out how many people had Donald Trump winning the Presidential election when his first polling showed him at 1%... In the Republican primary for President. Truth is its way too early to know what kind of race this will be in nine weeks. Yes, Gillum’s left of Florida’s usual Democratic candidates. Yes, Florida’s economy is terrific and a “status-quo” candidate should have an advantage in this environment but... Just ask Gwen Graham, Philip Levine and Jeff Greene about what Gillum’s capable of doing. Add into it that this midterm cycle is historically a favorable one for Democrats and what we have is a race that starts out with a 3ish point advantage for DeSantis with a quarter of voter's undecided. Anything can happen, and anything has happened – especially in Florida.