Six in 10 likely voters in St. Petersburg say they have already cast a ballot for Mayor. Charlie Crist leads them 59% to 38%.
The latest St. Pete Polls survey, taken Thursday and Friday for Florida Politics, has Crist ahead of incumbent Mayor Ken Welch 55% to 35% among all likely voters once undecided voters say which way they lean. Ten percent still won’t say. Give Welch every one of them and he finishes at 45%.
On the first ask, before the lean question, it is 54% to 34% with 12% undecided. The lean question moves about two points of undecided voters, most of them to Crist. With Election Day on Tuesday and most ballots already returned, the with-leaners number is the better read of where the race stands.
Among the 61% who have voted, it is Crist 59%, Welch 38%, and 3% who won’t say. Among the 39% still planning to vote, it is Crist 49%, Welch 29%, and 22% undecided. If Welch won every undecided voter who has not yet cast a ballot, he would carry that group by a point or two and still lose the election by 12 points.
A week ago, 42% said they had voted and Crist led them 60% to 34%. The banked vote has grown by half since then, and Crist leads it by 21 points.
It is the fourth and final St. Pete Polls survey of the race since the Primary. Crist has held a majority in all four: 52% in early September, 53% on debate day, 54% last week, and 55% now. Welch has gone 27%, 32%, 34%, and 35%. His gains came from undecided voters, who were 21% of the sample in September and are 10% now.
Welch had not reached 35% in any St. Pete Polls head-to-head this year. He gets there in this one, rounded up from 34.6%. Crist has led every St. Pete Polls head-to-head since March, when it was 36% to 31%.
The race is nonpartisan and both men are Democrats. Crist leads among Democrats, 49% to 45%, after running even with Welch a week ago. He takes Republicans 62% to 22% and independents 58% to 31%.
Black voters, who gave Welch a 55% to 16% lead in March, go to Crist 46% to 43%. In August I wrote that Welch needs 70% or better of the Black vote to have a path. He is at 43%.
Crist leads among men, 58% to 32%, and women, 53% to 37%. He wins every age group. Voters 70 and older go to Crist 63% to 32%, and voters 50 to 69 go 61% to 27%. The closest group is voters 30 to 49, at 47% to 44%.
St. Pete Polls conducted the survey for Florida Politics on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 29 and 30, among 489 likely voters within the city limits, using a mix of automated phone calls (37%) and peer-to-peer text messages (63%). The sample was drawn from the state voter file as of Oct. 14 and weighted by party, race, age, and gender to match the city’s active-voter population. Respondents who said they did not plan to vote for Mayor were excluded. The margin of error is 4.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. The full results are here.
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Ed. note: Michelle Todd Schorsch is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee backing Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics.
