Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) holds a strong lead over Charlie Crist in the race for Florida’s governor, leading his Democratic challenger by 11 points in recent polls.
About 52% of registered likely voters said they planned to vote for DeSantis compared to 41% who said the same for Crist, according to a poll from Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy. The Republican incumbent leads Crist, who served as the state’s governor from 2007 to 2011, in almost every area of the state except for the traditionally Democratic southeastern portion.
DeSantis also enjoys high approval ratings in the state, with 55% approving of his job performance, according to the poll. Those numbers are expected to change in the coming weeks as the governor continues to lead the state’s response to Hurricane Ian, which tore through Florida last week and destroyed several buildings and left several without power.
Some have criticized DeSantis’s response to the hurricane, primarily pointing to the delayed evacuation of Lee County, which was hit hard by Ian. However, others have argued that local officials are responsible for making those decisions rather than the governor.
“I don’t think it was a problem, and, if it was, the hurricane just wiped it out,” said Brad Coker, a pollster for Mason-Dixon. “DeSantis is going to be Governor Hurricane for the next couple weeks. The disadvantage Crist has is twofold: He’s completely out of the news, and he never managed a hurricane, so he can’t stand up and point to what he did. So Crist is totally, totally defanged.”
The death toll from Hurricane Ian in Florida has risen above 100 as of Tuesday, and emergency responders are continuing search and rescue efforts.
The Mason-Dixon poll surveyed 800 registered voters in Florida from Sept. 26-28 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.