Race Analysis

9/28/10 -- The polls indicate that this race is starting to get away from Crist. Rubio's lead is cracking double digits. Crist's problem is that his position was always pretty untenable -- as he moves toward Democrats he sheds Republican supporters, and as he moves toward Republicans he sheds Democratic supporters.

----------Race Preview---------

This one is already a race for the ages, with more twists and turns than a John Grisham novel. Republican Senator Mel Martinez opted not to run for re-election in 2010. Republicans thought they had saved the seat when popular Governor Charlie Crist entered the race. But Crist drew a tough primary challenge from conservative former House Speaker Marco Rubio. Rubio surged to the lead, and Crist eventually dropped out of the Republican primary and decided to run as an independent. In the process, he began to send signals that he would caucus with the Democrats if elected.

The Democrats have their own drama. In addition to flirting with Crist, they had to contend with two aspirants for the Democratic nomination. Kendrick Meek is a former police officer who has represented the heavily African American precincts in the Miami area since 2002. Meek has a fairly standard liberal voting record, has never faced a general election opponent, and only endured two primary challenges, including his recent defeat of Jeff Greene in the Democratic Senate primary.

This makes for an interesting dynamic. Meek’s victory in the August primary means that he will probably hold the African American vote, which makes things dicey for Crist. Crist won’t win nearly as many Republican votes as he is getting in polls right now if Republicans intuit that he is going to vote for Harry Reid for majority leader. The three-way nature of this race means that 40 percent of the vote will likely be enough to win.