Florida Senate Take Two

I want to do an update on the Florida Senate race as it looks like things will be shaking up a bit in a few hours. What has been talked about as a possibility up until now looks like it's going to come to pass, namely, as the St. Petersburg Times is reporting, Charlie Christ should be announcing his run as an independent in the race for the open Florida Senate seat. He's been trailing Marco Rubio in the GOP Primary polling for quite some time and doesn't seem to be fond of the idea of losing out before the general election. Historically the game plan for federal elections in Florida has been to run to your base through the primary and then scramble back to the middle to get as many moderates as possible by the general. This is mainly because Florida is a wild state from the conservative panhandle and northern area along the Alabama and Georgia state lines down to the cosmopolitan city of Miami with its large block of hispanic voters and more liberal heads.

A three way race shakes this dynamic up considerably. With three candidates you only need a plurality under Florida election law to win. As best I know there are no runoffs or tie-brakers. This can be a huge advantage for Christ but also for Rubio and Kendrick Meek the likely Democratic challenger. In this instance there will be much more running to the base for Rubio and Meek because both sides can at least hypothetically get their candidates 34% of the vote where 51% was impossible. What this also does though is give Christ wide latitude to sweep up an odd man out coalition of moderate Republicans, true Independents, and Democrats disaffected by things that the Obama Administration has or hasn't done that they disapprove of. His main issues are going to be fundraising and creating a viable infrastructure to run on without the help of the GOP.

I think this is going to turn out to be an infinitely interesting race between now and November. I think it could tell us just how many moderate Republicans are out there, being drowned out by the Tea Party right now. And it could also give us a shot at a Democratic Senator from Florida.