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There are few occurrences that have less impact in real-time but garner as much attention as off-election year polls. That’s especially true when polls reflect the political preferences of most in news media. On Tuesday St. Pete Polls were out with new statewide polling that captured the imagination of news media from across the country. The reason, Governor DeSantis looks vulnerable. In fact, not only vulnerable but potentially trailing none other than former Florida Governor Charlie Christ.
This polling checks all of the news media’s buckets. Something easy to report on? Check. Seemingly bad news for a Republican? Check. Bad news for Ron DeSantis!? Double-check!!! And look, it fits a narrative that as Florida’s leading the country in COVID-19 cases amid the Delta surge, Floridians blame DeSantis.
It’s a hope by news media that Floridians want mandates and lockdowns just like their preferred dictatorial utopian leaders. But is that the case? Has Florida really become a state of mostly six-masked hermits? Or should we consider the source?
First, let's take a look at a couple of related headlines, Shock poll: Charlie Crist leads Ron DeSantis amid COVID-19 surge from Florida Politics and DeSantis falls behind Crist as COVID-19 cases surge from The Hill.
On the surface this might be a big deal, after all when you consider DeSantis having shown double-digit leads over Crist in multiple polls within the past month, it suggests something significant. Or does it? There are so many flaws in the way polls report and analyze, but there’s one that’s the most pervasive of all. Not considering the source. In this context, it’s not necessarily that St. Pete polls isn’t credible, which by the way, they’re not when you consider that in 2018, they had Gillum winning by 5-points, but even the failure to poll within even their “margin of error”, isn’t the most relevant point.
An alternate headline one could write in proper context is, DeSantis adds to lead over Fried in a hypothetical matchup. I’ll explain. The last time St. Pete Polls polled on the Governor’s race, Crist hadn’t announced yet so they only polled on a hypothetical matchup with Nikki Fried. In that poll, St. Pete polls showed a 1-point lead for DeSantis over Fried. In the just-released poll, that lead had grown to three points. Interesting, right? So, it’s like this. The pollster that missed the outcome of the last governor’s race, by six points, has consistently shown DeSantis with a far lower lead than all other pollsters across the state, and their most recent polls showed DeSantis performing better than in their previous one. Like I said. Consider the source and the facts.