From the very start of this election, the biggest challenge facing Alex Sink in the FL-13 special election was the significant party registration advantage for the Republicans among likely voters. The samples for our polls always projected an electorate that would be 11 points more Republican than Democratic – a difficult margin for any candidate to overcome.
Despite the sizeable edge for Republicans, Alex Sink was able to run a remarkably close race in the special election. Our polling, which showed the trial heat virtually even over the course of several weeks, indicated that the debate over the Affordable Care Act helped Sink more than it hurt her, particularly in creating a lead among Independent voters that almost negated the entirety of the Republicans’ superior numbers in the partisan turnout. CONT. – pdf
Geoff Garin, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group
Note: Garin conducted polling for Alex Sink.