A New Florida Poll Puts the Governor's Race in a Dead Heat Among Decided Voters - With One in Five Still Undecided

Florida's governor's race goes into its final 48 hours statistically tied, on the newest statewide survey in the field. The poll, conducted by Political Matrix and The Listener Group for Palafox Media Network among 500 likely voters from October 26 to 28, puts Republican Byron Donalds at 40.3 percent and Democrat David Jolly at 38.8 percent among all respondents - inside the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 points - with 20.9 percent still undecided. Among voters who have made a choice, Donalds leads 50.9 to 49.1, which is the definition of a dead heat two days out.

The Senate special election on the same ballot is less tight on this survey. Republican Ashley Moody, appointed to the seat and now seeking to hold it, leads Democrat Angie Nixon 41.8 to 35.8 percent, with 22.4 percent undecided - a six-point edge that is clearer than the governor's margin but still leaves more than a fifth of the electorate uncommitted in the poll's final reading. The survey's third finding may be its most consequential for homeowners: Amendment 3, the proposed homestead exemption expansion, needs 60 percent support to pass and currently sits well below that threshold, with significant uncertainty among respondents.

What a 500-voter survey with a fifth of respondents undecided cannot do is call any of these races - and this one does not try to. It says the governor's contest is close enough that the campaigns' Election Day operations, in Escambia County and everywhere else, are the remaining variable; that Moody starts Tuesday with the stronger hand in the Senate race; and that Amendment 3's supporters face an uphill final push to a supermajority threshold. The count that matters starts at 7 a.m. Tuesday.