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.

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist holds a robust lead over primary opponent Marco Rubio, a former state House speaker, in the 2010 Florida Senate primary race, according to new polls from Quinnipiac University and Rasmussen Reports.

In the Quinnipiac poll of registered voters conducted Aug. 12-17, Crist led Rubio 55 to 26 percent in the race for the open seat. The poll's margin of error for Republicans was plus or minus 4.6 percentage points.

The Rasmussen poll of likely Republican primary voters conducted Aug. 17 found Crist leading Rubio 53 to 31 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Rubio is running to the right of Crist, but trails the governor in name identification and fundraising at this early stage.

Republican Gov. Charlie Crist's high statewide name recognition is paying off, with Crist holding strong leads in both the primary and general elections at this early stage in the race, according to a Mason-Dixon Polling & Research survey conducted June 24-26.

The survey found that only 3 percent of voters of all parties failed to recognize Crist and less than 1 percent of likely Republican voters responded that they did not recognize Crist. By comparison, 47 percent of voters of all parties and 48 percent of likely GOP voters surveyed did not recognize Crist's major challenger for the GOP nomination, former state House speaker Marco Rubio.

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.

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.