Former Sen. Loranne Ausley has an early lead in the race for Tallahassee Mayor, with City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow not far behind.
A new St. Pete Polls survey conducted for Florida Politics shows Ausley leading the four-candidate field with 29% support, followed by Matlow at 24% with Daryl Parks 10 points back from the top two, and Michael Foust sitting at around 3%.
“Undecided” ranks as the top pick for Tallahassee voters, with just over 31% of those polled saying they have yet to choose a candidate in the race to succeed John Dailey, who opted not to seek a third term leading the capital city.
With less than a month to go, the survey suggests no candidate is in position to clinch the 50%-plus-one needed to win the nonpartisan seat outright in August and that the contest will instead determine which two candidates advance to the November ballot.
Though Ausley served in the Senate as a Democrat, the crosstabs show she performs best among Republicans, who back her 36% to Matlow’s 7%, and among voters age 70 and older, where she posts a commanding 47% to 20% advantage.
Matlow, meanwhile, leads Ausley among Democratic voters, 33% to 28%, and among voters younger than 50. Parks’ strongest support comes from Black voters, where he receives 33%, compared with 19% for Ausley and 13% for Matlow.
The same poll also measured where Tallahassee voters stand on the Governor’s race, finding Democratic front-runner David Jolly with a nearly 3-to-1 advantage over Republican Primary favorite Byron Donalds, 47%-17%, with no-party candidate Desmond Meade polling at 2%.
About 12% of voters plan to support a different gubernatorial candidate with the remaining 22% undecided.
St. Pete Polls surveyed 345 likely Tallahassee voters July 19-20 using automated telephone calls and peer-to-peer text messages. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 5.3 percentage points.