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Poll: Crist leads 3-way Senate race, guv contest a squeaker voters down on Obama, drilling, health care law..

Crist

Republican-turned-independent Gov. Charlie Crist leads the general election race for U.S. Senate with 37 percent to 32 percent for Republican Marco Rubio and 17 percent for leading Democrat Jeff Greene, a new Quinnipiac University poll finds.

If U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek is the Democratic nominee, he gets only 13 percent of the vote, with Crist at 39 percent and Rubio at 33 percent, the poll says. Crist was also the leader in an early-June Quinnipiac poll.

Quinnipiac finds a tight November governor’s race. In a poll that has a 3.2 percent margin of error, GOP frontrunner Rick Scott would get 29 percent to Democrat Alex Sink’s 27 percent, with independent Bud Chiles pulling 14 percent.

If Attorney General Bill McCollum is the Republican nominee, he tops Sink by a 27-to-26 percent margin, with Chiles at 14 percent.

Quinnipiac released polls Thursday showing wealthy self-financed outsiders Greene and Scott holding double-digit leads in their respective primaries. - PostPolitics/Bennett.

* Money talks..
"Two wealthy newcomers to Florida politics who are self-financing their campaigns have taken double-digit leads in the state's Republican gubernatorial and Democratic Senate primary races...

Rubio a big spender as well as big fund-raiser in U.S. Senate race..

Republican Marco Rubio collected $4.3 million from April 1 to June 30, a record for a U.S. Senate candidate in Florida. But he spent $4 million during the same period.

Rubio's supporters say it was money well spent. He pushed his top primary opponent out of the Republican Party by the end of April and by June 30 had built a base of 75,000 donors who can continue giving to the campaign.

But Rubio needs a better return on his fund-raising investment -- $1.7 million last quarter in direct mail, phone calls and online outreach — or he'll risk being outspent by Gov. Charlie Crist, who left the GOP to run with no party affiliation.

Since Rubio started raising money in February 2009, he's spent 63 percent of every dollar he's collected.

If he continues on that pace, he would need to raise $6.2 million in the third quarter of the year just to match the $8.2 million Crist had in the bank as of June 30.

Much of the Rubio's spending last quarter was directed at pushing Crist out of the Republican primary, a Palm Beach Post analysis of Rubio's expenditures show.

"We were essentially locked in a battle in April that wasn't supposed to happen until August," Rubio spokesman Alex Burgos said. "We knew we had to treat that month as if it was the last month of the primary."

That's because Rubio viewed his real GOP primary as the April 30 deadline for Crist to decide whether to register in the Republican contest or to go independent.

He poured $1.2 million into TV ads that month to push back at Crist, who had gone on television in March.

Crist aired his last TV spot on April 8, but Rubio continued to spend.

Rubio started his underdog campaign on a shoe-string budget, joking at the time that his only campaign aides were "Mr. Garmin and Mr. SunPass."

But as he's risen from long-shot to front-runner, so have his expenses.

In the second quarter he spent $402,000 on seven political consultants, two finance consultants, one legal consultant, a compliance consultant and creative consultant for his direct-mail, The Post found.

"I thought he was just going from pine tree stump to pine tree stump generating an upwelling to sweep him into the Capital, said Republican operative Mac Stipanovich, who is supporting Crist in the race. "That kind of money for consultants isn't really consistent with his image."

Rubio's campaign also spent $153,000 on hotels, plane tickets and rental cars last quarter, including a $601 bill at the Luxe Hotel on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

Food and beverage cost the campaign $32,000, including $2,770 to cater an event at the Pelican Yacht Club in Fort Pierce.

There were $115,000 in credit card payments, $38,000 in bank and credit card fees and $188,000 in payroll expenses.

Rubio's political opponents have previously tried to label him as a "big-spending politician" by pointing to his personal use of state party credit cards and his double-billing of state taxpayers for flights when he was Florida House speaker.

But Burgos defends the expenses as necessary. He also cautions against comparing Rubio's spending to that of Crist, who burned through just 30 percent of the $12 million he raised.

Crist, whom polls now show with a slight lead among general election voters, can still rely on free publicity as governor when he responds to emergencies like the oil spill. And he continues to travel the state at taxpayer expense to hold ceremonial bill signings. He was in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday to sign a bill that had already been law for nearly a month.

But Rubio will also receive help from outside groups that traditionally support Republican candidates. Groups like the Club for Growth, the Family Research Council and the American Action Network have already spent money on behalf of Rubio.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Business and National Republican Senatorial Committee could also weigh-in soon.

"This is a campaign that started from scratch in terms of fund-raising, in terms of political operation, in terms of everything," Burgos said.

ThePalmBeachNews/Bender/Playford.

Poll: Crist leads 3-way Senate race, guv contest a squeaker voters down on Obama, drilling, health care law..

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