Tea Party candidate Randy Wilkinson, a longtime Polk County commissioner, is polling 20 percent of the vote in Florida’s 12th congressional district, according to an internal poll released yesterday by Democratic candidate Lori Edwards.
The sprawling district, positioned along the state’s I-4 Corridor, stretches across Central Florida, including most of Polk County and parts of Hillsborough and Osceola counties.
The generally conservative district, carried overwhelmingly by George W. Bush in 2004 and narrowly by John McCain in 2008, has been represented by Republican Adam Putnam since January 2001, when the 26-year-old state legislator became one of the youngest members ever elected to Congress. Putnam is giving up his seat in the House this year to run for state Agriculture Commissioner.
Conducted in late July by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling firm founded by Stan Greenberg, a professor in comparative politics at Yale University, the internal poll showed Edwards, the Polk County supervisor of elections, garnering 35 percent among likely voters to 32 percent for Dennis Ross, the presumptive Republican nominee. Her lead was within the poll’s 4.9 percent margin of error.
A former reporter and ex-state representative currently serving in her third term as the county’s elections’ chief — winning her last two elections without opposition — Edwards hopes to capture the traditionally Republican-held seat in what is quickly shaping up to be a genuine three-way dogfight in November.
Edwards and Ross both face opposition in the August 24 primary. Edwards is facing a challenge from Navy veteran Doug Tudor of Riverview, the party’s nominee in 2008 — garnering 42.5 percent against Putnam — while Ross, a former state lawmaker from Lakeland who was recently endorsed by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, faces token opposition from John W. Lindsey, Jr., a little-known conservative activist.
Putnam is actively supporting Ross.
Ross, 50, whose candidacy also enjoys the blessing of former Gov. Jeb Bush, had seriously considered challenging Katherine Harris for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in 2006, but stepped aside at the eleventh hour when a few better-known candidates belatedly entered that contest.
The internal poll, found that Wilkinson, long known for his frugality when it comes to government spending — a solid tea party trademark — pulls about twice as many voters from his likely Republican opponent as from Edwards. Incredibly, 18 percent of the Republican voters surveyed and more than a third of the self-described conservative independents polled indicated that they support the Tea Party candidate.
Conducted among 400 likely voters in November, the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll also revealed that Wilkinson — who has won four consecutive countywide races, three as a county commissioner and one for the school board in a county with a population estimated at 580,000 — apparently enjoys higher name recognition in the GOP-leaning district than Ross, who was term limited from the state legislature in 2008.
The poll found Wilkinson with a 12-point name recognition advantage over his Republican rival.
“On top of the national Tea Party momentum, Wilkinson is a candidate with a particular ability to siphon votes away from the Republican candidate and hold them,” stated the polling firm in releasing the results.
“The path to victory is clear,” said an obviously elated Douglas M. Guetzloe, the party’s senior advisor, in an e-mail communication to the party’s executive committee. “Randy is closing the gap dramatically.”
The conservative Tea Party candidate has been badly outpaced, however, when it comes to the mother’s milk of politics, raising a modest $33,402.72 in the first eight weeks after entering the race in late April. That includes a personal loan of $6,000 that he made to his fledgling campaign on April 29, shortly before qualifying for the race.
While that’s not necessarily inconsequential, especially for a late-starting third-party candidate, the GOP’s Ross, by comparison, had raised more than $791,000 as of June 30, the last quarterly filing period. Democrat Lori Edwards reported receipts of nearly $308,000 at the close of the same reporting period.
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