Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) leads Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) by double digits in Florida’s gubernatorial race, a recent Echelon Insights survey found.
The survey asked respondents who they would vote for if the gubernatorial race were held today.
DeSantis enjoys a ten-point advantage, leading Crist 52 percent to 42 percent. The Republican governor also enjoys more certainty among respondents, as 43 percent said they will “definitely” vote for him, compared to 31 percent who said the same for Crist.
A poll from USA TODAY/Suffolk also found DeSantis comfortably leading his Democrat challenger by seven percentage points, or 48 percent to 41 percent.
The Echelon Insights survey was taken August 21 to September 7, 2022, among 815 registered voters in Florida, and has a +/- 4.3 percent margin of error. The USA TODAY/Suffolk survey was taken September 15-18, 2022, among 500 likely midterm voters and has a +/- 4.4 percent margin of error:
🚨 FLORIDA POLL By Suffolk University
FL SENATE
(R) Marco Rubio 45% (+4)
(D) Val Demings 41%FL GOVERNOR
(R) Ron DeSantis 48% (+7)
(D) Charlie Crist 41%2024 FL GOP Primary
Ron DeSantis 48% (+8)
Donald Trump 40%https://t.co/q3OysDdQCm pic.twitter.com/RndVbGqbsN— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 21, 2022
The pair of surveys come weeks ahead of the midterm elections, as Crist, with the backing of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), desperately attempts to portray the successful Republican governor as a dictator.
More recently, Crist has expressed moral outrage over DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, accusing him of being part of a “human trafficking operation”:
A criminal investigation has been opened into Ron DeSantis’s political human trafficking operation.
Who else agrees it’s time for Ron DeSantis to get what he deserves?
— Charlie Crist (@CharlieCrist) September 21, 2022
DeSantis, however, has continued to double down, pointing to the great hypocrisy of Democrat elites, who deported the migrants off the wealthy island within 48 hours. He also questioned how Democrat elites expect everyday American communities to absorb the cost and burden of taking in migrants when the rich island of elites claimed that they lacked resources for just 50 migrants.
“They said they couldn’t accommodate. … If the wealthiest island, one of the wealthiest in America, can’t accommodate 50, then you’re looking at all these other communities and they’re just supposed to accommodate all this more?” DeSantis asked during Tuesday’s press conference.
“They’ll say like, oh, you know, sending a bus from Texas is a stunt. The biggest stunt is Biden coming in as president and reversing Trump’s policies, just so he could virtue-signal that he was against Trump,” DeSantis said of Biden, whom Crist champions.
“It didn’t matter that the policy had worked. He had to be anti and so that’s why he did it,” DeSantis added, stating during the press conference that Florida is prepared to “make more of an impact.”
