I Was 'Round When Charlie Crist Had His Moment Of Doubt And Pain

For several weeks I've been insisting that Charlie Crist is going to get crushed by Marco Rubio in the Florida Senate Republican primary. Last week Crist fell behind in a poll for the first time, and now he's down by double digits. The reason this outcome was so inevitable, aside from the trajectory, was that Crist was only being held up by vastly higher name recognition. The most grim news for Crist in the latest poll may not be his 14-point deficit but the fact that, among Republican primary voters who had an opinion of both candidates, Rubio leads by 50 (!) points. Rubio's lead is only going to grow.

Meanwhile, the Crist-as-independent notion I've been floating has finally broken through. Pollster Tony Fabrizio finds, "Based on his current standing in the GOP Senate Primary, Crist’s most viable path to the Senate appears to be running as an Independent." You read it here first.