ORLANDO, Fla. _ After months of the race being tied or within a few points, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson jumped to a 7-point lead over Florida Gov. Rick Scott in a new U.S. Senate poll released Tuesday.
The Quinnipiac University survey found that Nelson had 53 percent to Scott's 46 percent, a major shift from the tied race in the last Quinnipiac poll from Sept. 5.
The shift comes after Scott's campaign has been hit by protests over the red tide fungal growth in the Gulf, news reports about Scott's finances and Scott being forced to distance himself from President Donald Trump after the president falsely claimed the Puerto Rico death count was inflated by political enemies.
Nelson "is doing a tad better than Gov. Scott with their respective bases and holding a 16-point lead among the key independent voting bloc," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Nelson also had a 58 percent to 41 percent lead among women and was just four points behind Scott with men, 51 percent for Scott and 47 percent for Nelson, "the traditional path to a Democratic victory," Brown said.
"A Nelson win would be a big boost for Democratic hopes of wresting control of the U.S. Senate from the GOP," Brown added.
While white voters back Scott 53 percent to 45 percent, Nelson's lead with black voters was a whopping 90 percent to 10 percent.
With Hispanics, who until this poll had been in the Scott column, Nelson led 61 percent to 39 percent.
Another big difference with past polls was Nelson having a better favorability rating than Scott. Nelson had a 53 percent to 41 percent favorability rating, while Scott was underwater with a 46 percent to 51 percent favorability rating.
And time may be running out. Among likely voters who made a choice, 94 percent say their mind is made up.
The general election is Nov. 6.
The telephone survey was conducted from Sept. 20-24 throughout the state of Florida. Responses were reported for 888 self-identified likely voters with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
