Rubio Still Leads Crist by Big Margin in GOP Primary Race, But Crist Does Better in General Election

Marco Rubio, the former state House Speaker, still continues to lead Gov. Charlie Crist in a Florida GOP primary by a wide margin, but Crist in a general election match-up does better than Rubio against Democratic Rep. Kendrick Meek, according to a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll conducted March 15-17.

In the GOP primary, Rubio leads Crist by a big margin as he has had in other polls, by 58 percent to 38 percent with 12 percent undecided.

In general election match-ups, Crist leads Meek 45 percent to 36 percent with 19 percent undecided while Rubio is in a statiscal tie with the Democrat, leading him 41 percent to 40 percent with 19 percent undecided. The margin of error is 4 points.If Crist ran as an independent, Rubio comes out at 32 percent, Crist at 29 percent and Meek at 27 percent, with 12 percent undecided.

If Crist turned Democrat, he and Rubio are statiscally tied with Rubio leading 40 percent to 38 percent with 22 percent undecided.

Research 2000 matched up Crist and Meeks if Crist should turn Democrat and challenge Meek in a primary and found Meek leading Crist 24 percent to 21 percent, but in this hypothetical, 55 percent were undecided so it's hard to read anything into these numbers.

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