Miami Herald Posted at 12:07 a.m. EDT Thursday, August 2, 2001

Bush's top foe is Reno, poll says

BY LESLEY CLARK lclark@herald.com

TALLAHASSEE -- Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno would easily win a Democratic primary for governor, but if the election were held today she would lose soundly to Gov. Jeb Bush, a new poll shows.

The Mason-Dixon Florida Poll of 625 registered voters shows that despite a drop in his popularity, Bush could hold his own against Reno, by 54 percent to 39 percent, with a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Only 7 percent of those surveyed were undecided, a sign that most voters have firm opinions on the pair.

Reno hasn't yet said whether she will challenge the GOP incumbent, but the party faithful back her effort, telling pollsters with Mason-Dixon Polling & Research in Washington, D.C., that she would cruise to victory in a six-way Democratic primary with 47 percent of the vote.

But while Reno may be a party favorite, pollster Brad Coker said the poll shows lesser-known candidates with fewer negatives may have a better chance at besting Bush.

When matched up against relatively unknown Democrats like former congressman Pete Peterson, the first postwar ambassador to Vietnam, and Tampa congressman Jim Davis, Bush's showing is cut to just under 50 percent, with undecided voters nearly tripling to 20 percent.

Neither candidate captures as many votes in the poll as Reno: Peterson draws 32 percent to Bush's 49 percent and Davis 31 percent to Bush's 49 percent. But Coker said the results show Peterson and Davis have room for improvement.

``That 15 points Bush has over Reno is much more formidable than the 16 to 18 that he has over Davis and Peterson because they are unknown to over half of the voters,'' Coker said. ``She's already been defined, but the potential is there for Peterson or Davis to close into single digits if they can up their name recognition.

``If I were a strategist for either candidate, I would tell them this is a doable race,'' Coker said.

NAME RECOGNITION

Just 44 percent of voters knew of Peterson; 45 percent of voters recognized Davis' name. Only 3 percent didn't know Reno, but more Floridians disliked her -- 37 percent -- than liked her -- 32 percent.

``If you bring in Reno, you bring in some positive things like name recognition, but she has baggage that no one else has,'' Coker said. ``No one's going to ask Pete Peterson about Waco, no one's going to ask Jim Davis about appointing special prosecutors.''

But Reno energizes the party faithful like no other candidate -- pulling 47 percent of likely Democratic voters. Peterson came in second with 12 percent of the vote, followed by Davis at 7 percent.

However, Reno's popularity appears limited to core Democratic constituencies, Coker said. She leads Bush 84 percent to 6 percent among black voters and 57 percent to 36 percent in South Florida. But Bush in a Bush/Reno race would be able to split off 26 percent of the Democrats and 57 percent of the state's voters with no party affiliation.

In contrast, Reno would take only 8 percent of the Republican vote and would be defeated in conservative North Florida by 64 percent to 28 percent.

``All the numbers suggest she'd pull the core Democrats, but not the swing voters a Democrat needs to win in Florida,'' Coker said. ``You need to not get killed in North Florida, and the numbers don't suggest she has the potential to do that.''

Reno said the poll confirms the conventional wisdom she would win the primary and struggle in the general election.

``I've always said this would be a very challenging race,'' she said. ``But it doesn't mean anyone isn't going to have a hard race.''

Reno said she is still a month or so from making a final determination on whether to run. Poll results could factor into her decision, she said, if she thinks they have merit.

``I'm trying to do this in a comprehensive way, not piecemeal,'' Reno said.

Though party officials last week acknowledged they fear a crowded primary and may try to convince those in the back of the pack to abandon a quest, Democratic Party chief Bob Poe said it's far too early to access the potential candidates' chances.

Reno, he noted, hasn't yet declared whether she's running.

``There's a lot of time left for anybody,'' Poe said. ``You can't make that leap now because there are several decisions that have to be made.''

Of Reno, he said: ``Janet has to make a decision on her own to run, then she has to mount a campaign to see if she can do it.''

Poe said the poll speaks more to Bush's vulnerability. The poll shows Bush's unfavorability rating rising from 25 percent in February to 29 percent. The telephone poll was conducted Friday through Monday.

``The fact that two of these folks can hold Jeb under 50 percent ought to send a chill down their spine all the way from the White House'' to Tallahassee, Poe said. ``Jeb's numbers are moving in the wrong direction, and if I were them I'd be very, very concerned about a trend that has got to be troubling.''

Bush was unavailable for comment, but his campaign manager, Karen Unger, said the poll reflects strong popularity ratings -- ``particularly given the barrage of attacks leveled by the Democrats and covered almost daily by the media.''

``There's going to be a ton of polls between now and Election Day,'' Unger said. ``But we're encouraged that, in general, his numbers look good.''

Unger declined to comment on any hypothetical matchups between the governor and the field of Democratic hopefuls, noting, ``the governor is not focused on any individual candidate.''

REST OF GROUP

Other possible Democratic candidates did not fare nearly as well in matchups against Bush. They included House Minority Leader Lois Frankel of West Palm Beach, Sen. Daryl Jones of Miami and Tampa attorney Bill McBride.

Neither of those three kept Bush under 50 percent, which Coker called the ``critical threshold.'' They were also less well-known than Peterson or Davis.

A poll conducted by The Herald in late May showed Bush barely ahead of Reno by 49 percent to 43 percent. The telephone survey, done by Schroth & Associates of Washington, D.C., also put Bush's job disapproval rating at 40 percent.

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2001