Gov. Rick Scott (Photo: flgov.com)

Public Policy Polling released a poll Tuesday showing that Gov. Rick Scott’s approval rate among Florida voters is at an all-time low.

Public Policy Polling, which has worked for businesses, elected officials, unions and Democratic Party organizations, explains (.pdf): “Florida’s Rick Scott has retaken the title of least popular governor in the country among the 36 on which PPP has polled this year. His job performance mark has tanked from 36% approving and 52% disapproving when PPP last polled the state in September to 26-58 now, a decline of 16 points on the margin.”

Scott’s “greatest fall has been with his own party, which stands at 46-31, down 22 points. Independents disapprove by a 30-55 margin,” according to Public Policy.

According to poll results, men had a higher approval rating (30 percent) for Scott than women (22 percent) and Scott’s disapproval rate was higher among women (59 percent) than men (56 percent).

African-Americans voters show an 80 percent disapproval rate for Scott, followed by Hispanics with 66 percent — while 52 percent of white voters disapprove of Scott’s job performance.

When asked if last year’s elections could be repeated, 53 percent of voters polled said they would vote for Democrat Alex Sink, and 37 percent said they would vote for Scott.

Public Policy results released today also show that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has a 40 percent job performance approval among Florida voters, while 40 percent disapprove and 20 percent are not sure.

Rubio’s “poll numbers have declined every time PPP’s polled Florida this year.” Rubio “began 2011 with a +12 approval spread at 43/31.” Poll results indicate that Florida’s Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has an approval rating of +1.

Hispanic voters show a 52 percent disapproval rate for Rubio, followed closely by African-Americans at 50 percent, while white voters have a 46 percent approval rate for Rubio.

Public Policy “surveyed 700 Florida voters from November 28th to December 1st.”

In a recent interview, Sink said that the Florida Next Foundation will be a “non-profit, non-partisan policy foundation doing some research, gathering best ideas from around the world and input from everyday Floridians about how we rebuild our economy by supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs.”

The Foundation’s initial headquarters will be in Tampa’s Museum of Art, where Sink is slated to give a press conference sometime today.

Via the Tampa Tribune:

Sink said maintaining a public profile and activity on public policy is one of her goals.

“Sure it’s an effort to continue to be active in the public life of our state. Kind of like Bob Graham – I’m not done yet,” she said. “Like for Jeb Bush, his foundation has thrived for 20 years, and my dream would be that this foundation would thrive in the same way.”

Sink, who is in a very tight race with Republican Rick Scott — polls show her either three points up or three points down — may lose votes from African-Americans energized by Meek’s candidacy.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement that Clinton’s actions were “chilling” African-American voters. He added, “One can only imagine the response if Republican leadership tried to force out of the race – in the 11th hour – a qualified black candidate like Kendrick Meek.”

Meek is the only African-American Senate candidate this cycle; that Clinton (with awareness from the White House) almost persuaded Meek to drop out may well depress Democratic turnout that Sink needs to overcome Republican voters who are expected to turn out enthusiastically to vote for Senate candidate Marco Rubio.

At the same time, 1.7 million voters have already voted, so the effect of the report might be dampened.

The Meek campaign strenuously denies that he considered dropping out after talks with Clinton, a staunch Meek ally. “Kendrick Meek was not ever dropping out of this race and will not ever drop out of this race,” Meek campaign manager Abe Dyk said in a statement.

Luke Johnson writes for The American Independent.

The 30-second spot, which features attorneys, sheriffs and sergeants of all political stripes digging into Scott for pleading the fifth 75 times when questioned about his role in a Medicare billing fraud scheme in which his company was indicted, is pretty damning. It also shows a potential opening for Sink to outflank Scott on the issue of law enforcement and appeal to conservative voters in this area. Sink’s Democratic Party affiliation might make her chances slim were she running for Senate, but in state office contests there’s generally still a little more leeway for candidates to nab votes across the political aisle.

They made a “lesser of two evils” argument for supporting Scott over his opponent, Democrat Alex Sink, The Miami Herald reported today:

On Monday, the congressional Republicans said they also disagree on immigration with Sink, who opposes an Arizona-style law but would require business owners and state agencies to validate employees’ legal status.

“Since we disagree with both candidates on immigration, on what do we have to focus on?” Lincoln Diaz-Balart asked in Spanish after answering the question in English. “I think it’s, ‘Who’s prepared to create jobs from day one?’”

Quipped Ros-Lehtinen: “I can’t even get my own family to agree with me on most of my issues.”

Of course, all three had supported a tough-on-immigration candidate before: They backed Scott’s opponent, Attorney General Bill McCollum, in the primary. Facing ads attacking him for his weak immigration stances, McCollum unveiled a proposal in August for an Arizona-style law. Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers quickly responded with concern. “I’m disappointed and was blindsided by Bill’s decision to promote this, and I encourage the candidates to focus on plans that will improve Florida’s economy,” Ros-Lehtinen said at the time.

All three are supporters of immigration reform, particularly the DREAM Act, which would help some college students and military service members earn legal status. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who announced in February he will not seek re-election this year, introduced the bill in 2009, while Mario Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen co-sponsored the legislation. As governor, Scott would not have any say in the DREAM Act specifically — it is a federal effort — but he argues against all forms of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants in the country.

Rick Scott won the Florida Republican primary for governor Tuesday. (St. Petersberg Times/ZUMApress.com)

In an upset, former health care executive Rick Scott won Florida’s Republican primary for governor tonight, beating Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, according to the Associated Press.

Unknown candidate Mike McAlister earned about 10 percent of the vote. McCollum was all but expected to win the nomination until Rick Scott entered the race, and some polls in recent days showed him with a slight lead.

Scott, who has never held elected office, only announced his candidacy in late April and spent almost $40 million, out of of $218 million he has in disclosed assets. He ran on his business experience as former CEO of the for-profit hospital chain Columbia/HCA, despite the fact that he was forced out after the company paid $1.7 billion to the U.S. government for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Last year, he founded the group Conservatives for Patients Rights to fight against the Obama health care plan.

Late in the election, The Florida Independent, The Washington Independent’s sister-site, reported on new allegations against another health care chain he co-founded, Solantic, that included Medicare overbilling and using doctors licenses at clinics they did not operate at.

McCollum had been a former congressman from Orlando from 1981 to 2001; he won the race for attorney general in 2006. He had lost two nominations for U.S. Senate. McCollum had the endorsement of top Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and most Republican leaders across the state.

The race was among the most negative the country. Buoyed by his self-funding, Scott ran ads attacking McCollum for being a career politician, and McCollum and associated groups ran ads attacking Scott for his tenure at Columbia/HCA. McCollum lost out on state matching funds over the spending cap of $24.9 million after a Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta declared an injunction against it after Scott’s lawyers filed suit against it.

Scott has a difficult task in uniting the party. He will have to persuade the vast majority of state Republicans who backed McCollum and the to support him. The RPOF condemned Scott for linking McCollum to disgraced former party chairman Jim Greer, who faces criminal charges related to funneling party money into his own checking account.

Scott now faces Democratic Florida CFO Alex Sink and independent candidate Bud Chiles in the general election.

“Please be sure to show up and vote for Alex Sink for governor,” wrote Bird. “We need to show strong support in the primary so that this November we have the momentum to send gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink as well as CFO candidate Loranne Ausley and agriculture and consumer services commissioner candidate Scott Maddox to represent us in Tallahassee.”

Sunshine State News took the email to mean that it “looks like the Obama team is hedging its bets just in case Jeff Greene pulls off the upset on Tuesday.” They later updated the story, however, with a response from OFA:

UPDATE: “The President, the DNC and OFA have made clear their support for Kendrick Meek on numerous occasions,” wrote Joanne Peters with the DNC and OFA. “Just last week, the President was with Kendrick Meek in Florida and Chairman Kaine has repeatedly stated in interviews that the DNC supports Meek. This is just one of several get out the vote emails OFA will send in Florida.  Each email will look different and too much shouldn’t be read into this one email.”

It’s hard to read into OFA’s intentions, but it’s clear that the issue is still a sensitive one both in Florida and among Democrats in Washington. With Gov. Charlie Crist leading in the polls, some Democrats admitted to hoping his challenger Jeff Greene might win the primary, if only to have a legitimate excuse to back Crist in the general election. Whether Meek gets a big bump in the polls from his expected primary win tomorrow, or Crist continues to steal Democratic voters away from him, remains a subject of open contention.

What’s more, Quinnipiac also shows a major turnaround in the state’s gubernatorial race. Michael E. Arth’s quixotic campaign aside, this was supposed to be a contest between Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) and Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink (D). But now, McCollum has fallen 13 points behind health care industry executive Rick Scott, whose multi-million-dollar ad buy seems to have worked.

Coupled with the bizarre upset in South Carolina on Tuesday, this is shaping up to be one strange election season.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Michael E. Arth challenged Florida’s top three leaders to a debate on Thursday night at the Democratic Club of the Southwest Volusia County meeting in Deltona. Not surprisingly none of them showed up, but the “debate” went on anyway. Arth’s entourage brought life-size, cutout figures of Governor Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and Attorney General Bill McCollum. Arth said, “Whether they are here or not doesn’t matter because they won’t debate the serious issues affecting Floridians.”

This New Urban Cowboy appears to have done wonders to rehabilitate his local “Cracktown.” But it looks like breaking into mainstream statewide politics is proving a tougher challenge.