Former Florida state House Speaker Marco Rubio is cutting into Gov. Charlie Crist's lead in the Republican Senate primary, according to a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey conducted Oct. 12-18.

Crist led Rubio by 29 points in mid-August, but in the latest survey, the popular governor was ahead of Rubio 50 percent to 35 percent.

"Gov. Charlie Crist's lead ... has come back down to earth. His margin is still formidable, but obviously Marco Rubio's focus on convincing Republican conservatives that he, not Crist, is their kind of guy is bearing fruit," said Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Assistant Director Peter Brown.

Forty-four percent of Republican voters surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of Rubio while just 3 percent have an unfavorable opinion and 52 percent said they haven't heard enough about him.

The open-seat 2010 race for governor of Florida remains up for grabs.

Republican Bill McCollum, the state Attorney General, edged ahead of Democrat Alex Sink, the state chief financial officer, by 38 percent to 34 percent among registered voters, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University.

McCollum's edge in the survey, conducted Aug. 12-17, is not definitive, as his 4 percentage-point lead is barely more than the poll's statistical margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. And more than a quarter of the respondents to the poll -- taken more than 14 months before the general election -- declared themselves undecided.

The new results are an uptick for McCollum, though - an exact reversal from Quinnipiac's June 9 survey that showed Sink leading McCollum by 38 percent to 34 percent.

Although Republicans yet have to choose who their governor and senate candidates will be, Republican contenders hold early leads in general election match-ups for the state's open-seat races for governor and for U.S. Senate, according to two new polls from Rasmussen Reports.

In a poll of the governor's race, Republican state Attorney General Bill McCollum leads Democrat state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink 42 percent to 34 percent among 500 likely voters surveyed June 22. An additional 18 percent of voters were undecided and 7 percent indicated a preference for "some other candidate." The margin of error was 4.5 points.

A new poll indicates that Republican Gov. Charlie Crist's decision not to run for re-election has made the governership vulnerable to a Democratic takeover in 2010.

A Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters conducted June 2-7 found that Democrat Alex Sink, the state Chief Financial Officer, holds a narrow 38 percent to 34 percent lead over her major competitor in the governor's race: Republican state Attorney General Bill McCollum. The poll's margin of error is 2.8 percentage points.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum may have become the first big name to announce a run for governor now that Charlie Crist has opted for a Senate race, but if the GOP primary was held today, he'd run second to "undecided," according to a Mason-Dixon poll conducted May 14-18.

Matched against state Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson, who said he would "hopefully" make a decision on running this week, McCollum leads 39 percent to 12 percent, but 49 percent are undecided. Bronson suffers from the fact that 42 percent don't recognize his name compared to only 18 percent who don't know of McCollum.