Republican Majority Campaign PAC

Rubio crushes Crist in Palm Beach straw poll

Former House speaker Marco Rubio is the only major Republican challenger to Gov. Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate seat.

As expected, Marco Rubio has won another county Republican Party straw poll by a huge margin over Gov. Charlie Crist—this one in Palm Beach County by 90-17 — leaving Republicans and others to continue to debate over whether such votes matter.

Rubio has already won straw polls of county Republican parties in Bay, Gilchrist, Hernando, Highlands, Jefferson, Lee and Pasco counties, many by lopsided margins — 75-1 in Highlands, for example.

The vote tonight was different, however. The earlier ones were all in rural or suburban counties. Palm Beach is the first big urban county in which the Republican Party organization has held such a vote. Large, urban counties should be Crist’s strong points.

But Crist will face similar votes soon in other big counties, including Broward and his home county of Pinellas.

Crist had a particular problem in Palm Beach County. In July, he appointed a Democrat, Priscilla Taylor, to fill a vacancy on the board of county commissioners. Local Republicans were angry even though Taylor, who is black, replaced another black Democrat representing the largely black district. Palm Beach county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein attributed the vote in part to that appointment.

But Republicans are debating whether such votes reflect only the opinions of the more conservative, activist base of the party—the members of local GOP organizations—or of mainstream Republicans.

Palm Beach party Vice Chairman Beth Kigel, who is also chairman of Crist’s campaign in the county, said the vote doesn’t represent the view of mainstream GOP voters there.

“We believe Gov. Crist resonates with the mainstream voters in Palm Beach County,” she said. “There over more than 240,000 of them, and their voice will be heard” on primary election day in 2010.

Kigel noted that Crist won the county by 2-1 in his 2006 primary for governor, even though most of the party structure backed his opponent, Tom Gallagher.

In the Palm Beach County vote, Bob Smith, who’s also filed as a Senate candidate, got 11 votes and Marion Thorpe got 4.