Is it time for Charlie Crist to quit the Senate race?

09/30/2010

Grim.

That's the only way you can react to a pair of polls that show No-Party Gov. Charlie Crist badly trailing Republican Marco Rubio.

Today's Quinnipiac University poll is, well, devastating for the Crist campaign. It is beginning to look like Crist's frolick into the world of no-party candidacy is going to end badly.

The news is worse for Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek who is at 18 percent.

Rubio is at 46 to Crist's 33 percent. Yesterday, Crowley Political Report, told you about the CNN/Time magazine poll that shows Crist trailing Rubio by seven points, 38-31.

The Q poll is a much larger sampling - 1,151 likely Florida voters with a margin-of-error of plus/minus 2.9 percent.

The CNN/Time poll surveyed 786 likely voters with a MOE of plus/minus 3.5 percent.

Let's unscientfically split the difference and suggest that Crist is 10 points behind.

No matter how you look at the numbers the trend appears to be that Crist's campaign is collapsing.

According to the Q-poll, "Rubio is getting 83 percent of the Republicans, 40 percent of independents and 8 percent of Democrats.

"Crist gets just 13 percent of Republicans, but 46 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents. Meek gets 43 percent of Democrats, but just 12 percent of independent voters and 1 percent of Republicans."

Can Crist pull ahead in the next four weeks?

Possibly, but not likely.

If Crist really wants to stop Rubio from going to Washington, he may have to admit that his campaign is a failure and drop out.

The flip side of that argument is that Meek is in even worse shape. The path to a Meek victory appears non-existent.

Could someone actually broker a deal between Crist and Meek to get one of them to drop out?

Again, not likely. But don't be surprised if you start hearing that chatter among Democratic Party leaders.

It may be the only way either Crist or Meek can win.

Posted at 11:06 AM in Marco Rubio, Polls | Permalink | Comments (1)