Dems lead in CA; Rubio up big in FL

By Rick Moran

It's Sunday which means a slew of polls have been released and they carry some mixed news for Republicans.

Governor Moonbeam has taken a slight but significant lead over Meg Whitman in the CA gubernatorial campaign while Senator Ma'am has pulled ahead of Carly Fiorina according to the latest LA Times/USC poll:

Democrat Jerry Brown has moved into a narrow lead over Republican Meg Whitman in their fractious contest for governor, while his party colleague Barbara Boxer has opened a wider margin over GOP nominee Carly Fiorina in the race for U.S. Senate, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found.
The Democratic candidates were benefiting from their party's dominance in California and the continued popularity here of President Obama, who has retained most of his strength in the state even as he has weakened in other parts of the country. Support for Obama may play a key role in the Senate contest, one of a handful nationally that could determine which party wins control of the chamber.

At the same time, the survey showed, Republicans Whitman and Fiorina have yet to convince crucial groups of voters that their businesswoman backgrounds will translate into government success.

Interesting that only about half of the respondents were "likely voters" which, this close to the election, is what most pollsters are polling. Also somewhat surprisingly, there was no party breakdown, only "White" and "Latino" voters in addition to "likely voters."

Given that other polls have shown the race closer, we might want to apply less weight to this one that the cumulative numbers from the others which show both races within the margin of error.

Meanwhile, in Florida, Marco Rubio has built a 12 point lead on second place RINO Charlie Crist running as an independent. And poor Charlie - the Democratic nominee Rep. Meeks is pulling votes from him and moving closer:

A statewide poll released Saturday night shows Republican Marco Rubio building on his lead over independent challenger Charlie Crist, while Democrat Kendrick Meek appears to be closing in on Crist in the closely-watched contest.

Rubio is favored by 40 percent of likely voters, up from 38 percent last month; Crist's support has dwindled to 28 percent from 33 percent, according to the Mason-Dixon Research & Associates survey of 625 likely Florida voters. The margin of error is plus/minus 4 percentage points.

The poll found that Meek is gaining on Crist, with his support rising sharply to 23 percent of likely voters, up from 18 percent. Nine percent are undecided. Story here, and poll info here.

It appears that Meeks and Crist will be splitting the moderate centrists and liberal vote while Rubio cleans up among conservatives and Republicans. Still too early to say Marco has it won but you would have to say at this point he will be very difficult to catch.