Poll shows Senate candidate Carlos Beruff with big lead among GOP activists

Republican Senate candidate Carlos Beruff's television blitz appears to be working. A new email-based poll of 1,885 Republican activists statewide shows the Manatee County homebuilder is the choice of 27.2 percent of likely primary voters. That would give him an 8 percentage point lead over his closest competitor, Rep. David Jolly, R-Indian Shores, who is getting 19.3 percent of the support, according to the email poll run by the Sarasota County Republican Party.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Ponte Vedra Beach, was in third with 17.8 percent. Orlando area businessman Todd Wilcox was at 9.4 percent and Florida Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera was getting 6.5 percent.

Beruff only got into the race at the end of February but has committed more than $1 million of his own money to help fund television commercials airing for most of the last four weeks.

The poll showed 13.8 percent still are unsure of who they will support. Even though it was a poll of Republican activist, 3.2 percent said they support Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, and 2.8 percent said they'd support Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando.

This story was originally published May 20, 2016 at 7:25 AM with the headline "Poll shows Senate candidate Carlos Beruff with big lead among GOP activists."