An exclusive poll of the Saint Petersburg mayoral race indicates a deadlocked, three-way competition among the announced candidates, with incumbent Bill Foster with a narrow lead over challengers Kathleen Ford and Rick Kriseman.
The survey of registered voters in the city conducted by St. Pete Polls, taken yesterday after Ford officially entered the race, pegs Foster with 28% support, Ford at 27% and Kriseman at 23%. Twenty-one percent of voters say they are undecided.
Keeping the race close are the individual approval ratings of the three major candidates. Foster is upside down with St. Petersburg residents as 44% have an unfavorable impression of him, while 37% have a positive one. Ford, perhaps surprisingly to her critics, has a +9 favorability rating at 36%/27%. Kriseman is also viewed in favorable terms at 32%/24%.
Foster’s strength can be found with Republican voters in the city. Although municipal lections are non-partisan, Foster captures 42% of the Republican vote, while Ford and Kriseman essentially split the Democratic vote.
Beyond Republican voters, however, Foster barely leads or trails Ford in several interesting demographics, including blacks and young voters.
The poll was conducted by an automated phone call polling system. The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents’ demographics and the demographics of the registered voter population in St. Petersburg. The demographics used were: party, race and age.
The voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population inside of the City of St. Petersburg.
The scientific results shown in this poll have a sample size of 479 and margin of error of 4.5% at a 95% confidence level.
