Elections do not get much closer than the special election for House District 36.
According to a new survey from St. Pete Polls commissioned by this blog, the race is deadlocked with Republican Bill Gunter and Democrat Amanda Murphy both at 44% among likely voters. Twelve percent of respondents said they were undecided.
The poll has a larger-than-usual margin of error at 5.6% because of the small sample size available of voters who said they would cast a ballot in the October 15 special election.
What would be a game-changer in the race would be for former state Representative turned Pasco County Tax Collector Mike Fasano to endorse in the race. Fifty percent of likely voters said they would be more likely to support a candidate endorsed by Fasano, while 32% said they were unsure it would make a difference and 18% said they would be less likely to support a candidate backed by Fasano. If you do the math, Fasano’s endorsement is worth plus-32 points.
Fasano has stated he will not be endorsing Gunter or Murphy, although he has been increasingly critical of Gunter and supportive of Murphy, especially on Twitter. This blogger has speculated that Fasano might be setting himself up for a last-minute endorsement of Murphy.
