The Florida Races: Except for Crist, Still a Lot of Unknowns

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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.

As far as Crist's fortunes in seeking the Senate seat being vacated by one-term Sen. Mel Martinez, the poll has him leading former Florida House Speaker Mark Rubio when matched in a GOP primary, 53 percent to 18 percent with 29 percent undecided . Rubio is running to Crist's right, and has already aired an ad linking him to President Obama in terms of polices. But like Bronson on the Democratic side, Rubio is unknown to 56 percent of voters while Crist is recognized favorably by 50 percent, with 19 percent seeing him negatively and 31 percent being neutral in their view.

In general election match-ups, Crist led four-term Rep. Kendrick Meek 55 percent to 24 percent with 21 percent undecided and state Sen. Dan Gelber by 57 percent to 22 percent with 21 percent undecided.

The poll's figures on who would win the Democratic primary for Senate - Meek or Gelber - are pretty meaningless because 58 percent are undecided. Of the remaining, Meek leads Gelber 26 percent to 16 percent. Meek is unknown to 57 percent of voters and Gelber to 77 percent.

In general election match-ups for governor, McCollum leads state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink by 40 percent to 36 percent with 26 percent undecided while Sink leads Bronson 37 percent to 29 percent with 34 percent undecided. (The margin of error is 4 points). Sink's name was not recognized by 45 percent of voters.

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