{"id":445160,"date":"2026-11-02T15:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T15:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/445160\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T15:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T15:22:11","slug":"final-poll-charlie-crist-leads-ken-welch-55-to-35-and-most-of-st-pete-has-already-voted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/445160\/","title":{"rendered":"Final poll: Charlie Crist leads Ken Welch 55% to 35%, and most of St. Pete has already voted"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six in 10 likely voters in St. Petersburg say they have already cast a ballot for Mayor. Charlie Crist leads them 59% to 38%.<\/p>\n

The latest St. Pete Polls<\/a> survey, taken Thursday and Friday for Florida Politics, has Crist ahead of incumbent Mayor Ken Welch 55% to 35% among all likely voters once undecided voters say which way they lean. Ten percent still won\u2019t say. Give Welch every one of them and he finishes at 45%.<\/p>\n

On the first ask, before the lean question, it is 54% to 34% with 12% undecided. The lean question moves about two points of undecided voters, most of them to Crist. With Election Day on Tuesday and most ballots already returned, the with-leaners number is the better read of where the race stands.<\/p>\n

Among the 61% who have voted, it is Crist 59%, Welch 38%, and 3% who won\u2019t say. Among the 39% still planning to vote, it is Crist 49%, Welch 29%, and 22% undecided. If Welch won every undecided voter who has not yet cast a ballot, he would carry that group by a point or two and still lose the election by 12 points.<\/p>\n

A week ago, 42% said they had voted and Crist led them 60% to 34%<\/a>. The banked vote has grown by half since then, and Crist leads it by 21 points.<\/p>\n

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

It is the fourth and final St. Pete Polls survey of the race since the Primary. Crist has held a majority in all four: 52%<\/a> in early September, 53%<\/a> on debate day, 54% last week, and 55% now. Welch has gone 27%, 32%, 34%, and 35%. His gains came from undecided voters, who were 21% of the sample in September and are 10% now.<\/p>\n

Welch had not reached 35% in any St. Pete Polls head-to-head this year. He gets there in this one, rounded up from 34.6%. Crist has led every St. Pete Polls head-to-head since March, when it was 36% to 31%.<\/p>\n

The race is nonpartisan and both men are Democrats. Crist leads among Democrats, 49% to 45%, after running even with Welch a week ago. He takes Republicans 62% to 22% and independents 58% to 31%.<\/p>\n

Black voters, who gave Welch a 55% to 16% lead in March, go to Crist 46% to 43%. In August I wrote<\/a> that Welch needs 70% or better of the Black vote to have a path. He is at 43%.<\/p>\n

Crist leads among men, 58% to 32%, and women, 53% to 37%. He wins every age group. Voters 70 and older go to Crist 63% to 32%, and voters 50 to 69 go 61% to 27%. The closest group is voters 30 to 49, at 47% to 44%.<\/p>\n

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

St. Pete Polls conducted the survey for Florida Politics on Thursday and Friday, Oct. 29 and 30, among 489 likely voters within the city limits, using a mix of automated phone calls (37%) and peer-to-peer text messages (63%). The sample was drawn from the state voter file as of Oct. 14 and weighted by party, race, age, and gender to match the city\u2019s active-voter population. Respondents who said they did not plan to vote for Mayor were excluded. The margin of error is 4.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. The full results are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Ed. note: Michelle Todd Schorsch is the Chair of St. Pete Shines, a political committee backing Crist for St. Petersburg Mayor. Todd Schorsch is married to Peter Schorsch, the publisher of Florida Politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six in 10 likely voters in St. Petersburg say they have already cast a ballot for Mayor. Charlie…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[11591,3347,2346,106462,596,22306,202,204,3303,18455,203,7382,199,201,15767,129076,200],"class_list":["post-445160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-2026-election","tag-charlie-crist","tag-ken-welch","tag-matt-florell","tag-pinellas-county","tag-poll","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-mayors-race","tag-st-pete-mayoral-election","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-pete-polls","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-mayor","tag-st-petersburg-mayoral-election","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445160","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=445160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}