{"id":422485,"date":"2026-10-08T19:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/422485\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T19:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:06:09","slug":"republicans-hold-2-point-edges-in-cabinet-races-james-uthmeier-45-43-over-jose-javier-rodriguez-blaise-ingoglia-44-42-over-annette-taddeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/422485\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans hold 2-point edges in Cabinet races: James Uthmeier 45%-43% over Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodr\u00edguez, Blaise Ingoglia 44%-42% over Annette Taddeo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney General James Uthmeier leads Democrat Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodr\u00edguez 45% to 43%, and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia leads Democrat Annette Taddeo 44% to 42%, in a new St. Pete Polls<\/a> survey for Florida Politics. Both leads are inside the poll\u2019s margin of error.<\/p>\n

Another 12% are undecided in the Attorney General race and 14% in the CFO race, with four weeks until Election Day. Neither question offered a \u201csomeone else\u201d option.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier picked up 2 points since the pollster\u2019s mid-September survey<\/a>, which had him ahead 43% to 42%. Rodr\u00edguez gained a point. Undecided fell from 15% to 12%.<\/p>\n

The September survey did not test the CFO race.<\/p>\n

The survey of 836 likely voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans hold an advantage of more than 1.5 million active registered voters over Democrats, 5.65 million to 4.1 million<\/a> as of Aug. 31. That is 42% of the rolls to 30%, with 28% registered with no party or a minor party.<\/p>\n

The sample was weighted to match: 42% Republican, 31% Democratic, and 27% everyone else. Republicans made up 44% of respondents before weighting.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier holds 78% of Republicans, up from 74% in September. Rodr\u00edguez holds 79% of Democrats, about the same as last month. Rodr\u00edguez takes 12% of GOP voters and Uthmeier takes 9% of Democrats. St. Pete Polls reports its demographic breakdowns before weighting.<\/p>\n

Voters outside the two major parties favor Rodr\u00edguez 48% to 37%, with 15% undecided. He led that group by 9 points in September.<\/p>\n

Men back Rodr\u00edguez 46% to 43% and women back Uthmeier 48% to 40%. In September, men leaned Uthmeier by 4 points and women split at 43% each.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez leads 56% to 18% with voters under 30 and 53% to 34% with those 30 to 49. Voters 50 to 69 split 44% Uthmeier to 43% Rodr\u00edguez. Uthmeier leads 66% to 28% with voters 70 and older.<\/p>\n

White voters back Uthmeier 55% to 35%. Rodr\u00edguez leads 66% to 13% with Black voters and 52% to 38% with Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier leads the Tampa market 47% to 43%, down from 13 points in September. He leads West Palm Beach 51% to 37%, Fort Myers 56% to 28%, and Jacksonville 46% to 39%, a market Rodr\u00edguez led by 5 points last month. Rodr\u00edguez leads his home Miami market 49% to 40% and Orlando 48% to 42%.<\/p>\n

In the CFO race, Ingoglia holds 78% of Republicans and Taddeo holds 79% of Democrats. Taddeo takes 12% of GOP voters and Ingoglia takes 7% of Democrats. Voters outside the two major parties favor Taddeo 45% to 35%, with 20% undecided.<\/p>\n

Men back Taddeo 43% to 41% and women back Ingoglia 48% to 40%.<\/p>\n

Taddeo leads 54% to 20% with voters under 30 and 48% to 35% with those 30 to 49. Voters 50 to 69 split 43% Taddeo to 42% Ingoglia. Ingoglia leads 63% to 31% with voters 70 and older.<\/p>\n

White voters back Ingoglia 53% to 34%. Taddeo leads 69% to 9% with Black voters and 50% to 40% with Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n

Ingoglia leads Tampa 46% to 43%, West Palm Beach 52% to 33%, Fort Myers 56% to 27%, and Jacksonville 48% to 36%. Taddeo leads her home Miami market 51% to 41% and Orlando 47% to 38%. The smaller markets have too few respondents to draw conclusions.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier was Chief of Staff to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed him Attorney General in early 2025 after Ashley Moody left for the U.S. Senate. He has endorsements from President Donald Trump, the Florida Sheriffs Association<\/a>, and the Florida Police Benevolent Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez is a labor lawyer from Miami who served in the Florida House and Senate and was an Assistant Secretary of Labor under former President Joe Biden. He has the Florida AFL-CIO\u2019s endorsement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ingoglia, a Spring Hill Republican, former state Senator, and former Chair of the Republican Party of Florida, was appointed CFO by DeSantis in July 2025 after Jimmy Patronis left for Congress. He won the GOP Primary with 61% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Taddeo is a former state Senator and former Chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. She took nearly 66% of the vote in the Aug. 18 Primary, the strongest showing of any Democrat running statewide.<\/p>\n

A Change Research poll<\/a> fielded Sept. 7-9 for Freedom Project USA had the Attorney General race tied at 46% and the CFO race tied at 44%. A University of North Florida poll<\/a> last October had Uthmeier ahead 45% to 36%.<\/p>\n

An SEA Polling survey<\/a> for Taddeo\u2019s campaign, fielded Sept. 7-13, had the CFO race tied at 42%. A Ruth\u2019s List Florida poll in the Spring had Taddeo ahead 39% to 38% before she entered the race.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier had about $9.9 million on hand<\/a> as of Aug. 14 between his campaign and his political committee, Friends of James Uthmeier. Rodr\u00edguez had about $978,000 on hand on that date and has since passed $2 million raised.<\/p>\n

Ingoglia controlled $5.45 million<\/a> across his campaign and two political committees as of Sept. 3. Taddeo had about $108,000.<\/p>\n

St. Pete Polls conducted the survey Oct. 5-7 for Florida Politics, using automated phone calls for 57% of responses and peer-to-peer text messages for 43%. Respondents were drawn at random from the state\u2019s registered voter file as of Sept. 14. Results were weighted by political party, race, age, gender, and media market to match Florida\u2019s active voter population.<\/p>\n

Voters who said they do not plan to vote in the General Election were excluded. Of those who remained, 96% said they plan to vote in November and 4% were unsure. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ed. note: This story was drafted with assistance from AI. Peter Schorsch and the Florida Politics editorial team performed editorial judgment, sourcing, and final review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney General James Uthmeier leads Democrat Jos\u00e9 Javier Rodr\u00edguez 45% to 43%, and Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[166677,166678,138726,3853,2855,12852,118083,409,127896,102822,17675,118084,166679,34220,4260,8872,5325,69896,22306,412,39857,166680,202,204,203,7382,199,201,200,141643],"class_list":["post-422485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-2026-attorney-general-race","tag-2026-cfo-race","tag-annette-taddeo","tag-ashley-moody","tag-blaise-ingoglia","tag-cfo","tag-change-research","tag-donald-trump","tag-florida-afl-cio","tag-florida-police-benevolent-association","tag-florida-sheriffs-association","tag-freedom-project-usa","tag-friends-of-james-uthmeier","tag-general-election","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-jimmy-patronis","tag-joe-biden","tag-jose-javier-rodriguez","tag-poll","tag-ron-desantis","tag-ruths-list-florida","tag-sea-polling-strategic-design","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-pete-polls","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-university-of-north-florida-public-opinion-research-lab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}