Fla. poll shows Mack within five points of Nelson in Senate showdown

A new poll shows that Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.) is gaining steam in his likely Senate showdown with incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), trailing the Democratic lawmaker by just 5 percentage points.

A hypothetical head-to-head match-up shows Nelson with a 47-42 percent advantage, according to a poll released Friday by Florida Decides. Mack still needs to secure the Republican nomination in an August primary, but looks like a heavy favorite despite some initial stumbles.

The Florida Decides poll comes the same week Rasmussen, a conservative-leaning pollster, released a small sample survey that gave Mack a 9-point advantage. That poll appears likely to be an outlier — Rasmussen has been the only pollster to work the state and find the Republican lawmaker ahead — but Mack has been narrowing the 13-point advantage that Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling gave Nelson in June.

Friday's poll showed that Nelson was benefiting from strong support in the Democratic base, pulling 86 percent of black voters and 52 percent of women. Mack, conversely, banked half of white voters and 48 percent of men.

Interestingly, Mack actually posted a 1-point advantage among Hispanics. Florida's high Cuban population means its Hispanic electorate is routinely more conservative than nationwide averages.

Nelson could also be benefiting from higher name recognition, with 88 percent of Florida voters saying they had an opinion of the candidate, versus 82 percent for Mack. The Republican also has more leeway to be defined, with four in 10 saying they had a neutral opinion of his candidacy, versus less than a quarter who said the same for Nelson.

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