Poll puts Gaetz ahead in House GOP race

A three-question survey conducted simply to gauge “the way things are trending” in the District 4 state House race found Matt Gaetz to be leading the five-man Republican field by a wide margin.

Gaetz’s opponents questioned the timing of the poll’s release, and even Gaetz said he doesn’t put a whole lot of stock in the results.

“The bottom line is no poll can predict who’s going to vote in a special election,” he said.

The poll, which was released Wednesday, was conducted by Greg Fink of Marketing Metrics & Media in Pensacola. It found Gaetz to be favored by 36.1 percent of those surveyed.

It found Craig Barker was the choice of 16.7 percent of those polled. Kabe Woods was favored by 13.3 percent, Jerry Melvin by 5.6 percent and Bill Garvie by 3 percent.

Pollsters also determined that 25 percent of voters remained undecided.

The GOP primary is Tuesday. The winner will face Democrat Jan Fernald in the general election Nov. 2

Fink said his company conducted the poll by making 4,000 phone calls to “likely Republican voters in the House District 4 region.”

The results were compiled from the 400 who agreed to participate, Fink said. Participants used their phone dial pad to answer three basic questions.

Fink said the poll carried a statistical margin for error of 4 percent.

Fink said the poll “gives us a good snapshot of how the electorate stands” at this point in the campaign.

Gaetz said the poll results could be attributable to his hard campaign work.

“I feel like higher voter turnout will be better for us,” he said. “That’s the result of having knocked on 7,000 doors.”

All five candidates claimed to be unaware a poll had been conducted and all denied having any part in commissioning or funding the survey.

Fink said “nobody” paid Marketing Metrics & Media to conduct the poll.

“I did it myself,” he said. “We’re interested in local politics, interested in what goes on in Tallahassee and at the ballot box. We’re interested in the way things are trending.”

Woods said the timing of the poll’s release and its methodology left him “cynical.”

Garvie laughed when told Marketing Metrics & Media had conducted the poll out of curiosity.

“People don’t do that stuff out of the goodness of their hearts,” he said. “If they just wanted to know, they could have waited a week and saved themselves a lot of time and money.”

In an e-mail response to questions regarding the poll, Barker was also skeptical.

“Obviously, it was bought because pollsters don’t work free,” the former Destin mayor said.

“Campaign finance reports are due on the 19th, but I doubt you’ll see this poll listed as an expenditure because it was likely done clandestine by a 527 Account or Committee of Continuous Existence —maybe even the same outfit that financed the push-poll against Mr. Melvin and me,” Barker said.

Garvie said he had received a polling call before the well-financed Gaetz ever got into the race. A questioner wanted to know whether he thought Gaetz ought to run.

He said Gaetz, who has raised more than $200,000 for his campaign, is likely the only person who could have afforded to have a poll conducted.

The e-mail sent from Fink announcing the results was headlined: “No surprise: Matt Gaetz leads by nearly 20 percent in latest poll.”

Although Fink said “I’m not a supporter or an antagonist of any candidate,” another medium he is associated with, SoutheasternPolitico.com, prominently features Gaetz campaign literature titled “Matt Gaetz says time for a conservative comeback.”

A video runs with the literature.

Gaetz said he did not know Fink. Fink said he posted the Gaetz material before other candidates in the race began campaigning seriously.

“To be as objective as you can be you take what’s out there,” Fink said.

None of the other candidates in the race have been featured on SoutheasternPolitico.com.