LAKELAND — Democrat Andrew Gillum and Republican Rick Scott have narrow leads in their respective races for Florida governor and senator, according to a poll released Monday by Florida Southern College.

Political science professor Zachary Baumann oversaw the survey of likely voters, conducted Oct. 1-5.

The results tracked with the trend of other recent polls in Florida showing tight contests in the battles for governor and senator.

FSC's survey found Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, with support from 47.13 percent of likely voters, compared with 43.18 percent for Ron DeSantis, who resigned from the U.S. House after gaining the Republican nomination. That's a lead of 3.95 percentage points.

In the Senate showdown, the poll recorded Scott, Florida's current governor, with a roughly 1.5-point lead over Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson, 45.97 percent to 44.48 percent.

Respondents came from a randomly selected group of registered voters throughout Florida. The poll has a margin of error of 4.49 percentage points, Baumann said.

Baumann said 14 Florida Southern students made the phone calls that resulted in 476 responses from registered voters across the state. Bill Rufty, a retired Ledger political reporter, served as field director.

In the governor's race, 9 percent of respondents either preferred an unspecified other candidate or said they were undecided.

Gillum had an advantage of nearly 15 points over DeSantis among women, while DeSantis led by nearly nine points among men.

Baumann said the poll's findings for the Senate race diverged from other recent polls showing Nelson with a slight lead over Scott. More than 9.5 percent of respondents favored another candidate or were undecided.

Male participants favored Scott by about 12.5 percentage points, while Nelson had an edge of nine points among women.

The FSC report offered demographic breakdowns for each race. It showed Nelson with a nearly 24-point edge over Scott among self-identified Hispanic voters.

“It's showing he's got a lot of work to do there if this is a demographic group that he particularly cares about capturing,” Baumann said.

But Baumann noted that nearly 10 percent of Hispanics remained undecided, providing room for Scott to improve his support among that segment of voters.

The survey didn't cover specific U.S. House races but instead asked participants about their party preferences in district elections. The responses showed a virtual tie, with Democrats preferred by 42.4 percent and Republicans by 41.52 percent.

That left about 16 percent of participants choosing either "other" or “don't know” or declining to answer.

“That plays into this notion that people are more likely to know about the race for governor and senator than their local House race,” Baumann said.

The results were even closer when voters were asked which party they wanted to see control the U.S. House. Participants favored Republicans by a mere 0.05 percent. Only about 4 percent of voters in that category said they didn't know or it didn't matter.

Two questions in the survey involved President Donald Trump. One asked voters how important Trump would be to their electoral choices. Nearly 54 percent answered either “extremely important” or “very important.”

Baumann said those responses could include people who are positively and negatively influenced by Trump's policies.

A final question measured approval of Trump's performance. The survey found that 48.24 percent of respondents either somewhat or strongly disapproved of the president, while 47.8 percent either somewhat or strongly approved.

Trump fared much better among men than women. About 53.5 percent of male voters registered approval, compared with about 42.5 percent of women. The results showed that nearly 54 percent of women disapproved of Trump, as opposed to about 42.5 percent of men.

More than 64 percent of Hispanics reported somewhat or strongly disapproving of the president's performance.

Baumann said Florida Southern used an online telephony system, a more efficient approach than having the students physically dial each phone number.

“Our students were really good,” Baumann said. “They were fantastic, very professional in how they interacted with callers who are sometimes not thrilled about getting calls at 8 or 8:30 at night about who they're going to vote for.”

The failure of most polls to predict Trump's electoral victory in 2016 has generated skepticism among many Americans about the reliability of voter surveys. Gillum's victory in the Democratic primary also defied the trend of most polls.

But polling remains relevant and most major surveys are reliable, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. Jewett teaches a course on polling methods.

"What I've been telling my students is that although we have had some high-profile examples of polling getting it wrong ... polls are usually pretty accurate," he said.

Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on Twitter @garywhite13.