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FL-Sen: Bill Nelson and Rick Scott neck-and-neck in all-important Florida race
A new poll shows incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) leading U.S. Senate candidate and current Gov. Rick Scott by 2 percentage points in a new poll. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

FL-Sen: Bill Nelson and Rick Scott neck-and-neck in all-important Florida race

The Florida Senate race is looking to be a close one in November. A new poll showed sitting Sen. Bill Nelson (D) leading Gov. Rick Scott (R) by just 2 points, which is within the margin of error.

What are the details?

Because of laws governing term limits, Scott can no longer run for governor. So he decided to run for U.S. Senate instead, challenging incumbent Nelson.

This latest poll by Public Policy Polling showed Nelson leading Scott 48 percent to 46 percent. The remaining 7 percent said that they were undecided (poll numbers add up to more than 100 percent due to rounding). The margin of error for this poll was +/- 4 percentage points.

But this poll is not all bad news for Scott. In April, a poll conducted by the same company showed Nelson leading 50 percent to 44 percent. Another poll shows Scott with a slight lead. A poll released in early June by the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which endorsed Scott, put Scott ahead of Nelson by 3 points.

What else?

The Public Policy Polling poll also looked at favorability for each candidate. While more voters had an unfavorable view of Scott than a favorable one (44 percent favorable vs. 46 percent unfavorable), he scored higher in both categories than Nelson, who was just barely viewed as more favorable than unfavorable (42 percent to 41 percent).

Who conducted this poll?

The poll looked at responses from 1,308 registered voters from Florida, representing all 10 of Florida's media markets. It was conducted by phone on June 18-19 by Public Policy Polling and paid for by Christian Ulvert of Edge Communications, a company that works with current Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Philip Levine.

Forty percent of the respondents were Democrats, 39 percent were Republican. The remaining 21 percent were unaffiliated or identified with a third party. Forty-six percent of the respondents said they voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, and 45 percent said that they voted for Hillary Clinton.

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