In the final stretch of the Miami-Dade mayoral election, two separate internal polls put county Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava comfortably in the runoff.
Former Mayor Alex Penelas — who came in third in an independent business group poll Ladra posted about on Political Cortadito Aug. 6 — released a new poll of 350 likely primary voters Aug. 7-9. In his poll, of course, Penelas 
is in the lead with 27% of those surveyed saying they would vote for him. Levine Cava got 22%, Commissioner Esteban “Stevie” Bovo got 20% and Commissioner Xavier Suarez, who was also trailing in the other poll, was at 11%.
About 34% of the voters in this survey, released by the campaign, said they had voted already. Of the 66% who had not voted, Penelas was in the lead, closely followed by Suarez, then followed by Levine Cava and Bovo trailing behind.
Bovo does much better in an internal poll released Tuesday by Levine Cava, which mirrors the business group poll that was leaked last week that predicts a runoff between the two political polar opposites. But her poll, with a margin of error about 4.5%, could also indicate a runoff between her and Penelas.
Read related: Internal poll gives Xavier Suarez thin lead over Alex Penelas in mayoral race
In her own poll, conducted by San Francisco-based Change Research — a left leaning firm and the only pollster to predict a primary gubernatorial victory for Andrew Gillum — Levine Cava has 25% of the vote while 21% goes to Bovo. Penelas gets about 20% and Suarez gets 11%. Among the 35% of the 473 voters surveyed Aug. 3-6 who had already voted, 31% voted for the only female 
candidate and 25% voted for Penelas. Bovo was at 20% and Suarez at 12%.
This poll, the fifth internal poll by the Levine Cava campaign, also indicated that while Penelas and Suarez have much higher name ID, they also have higher unfavorables. It also shows that Bovo, the only Republican, is consolidating the GOP support as expected in this nonpartisan race, with 56% of that vote. Levine Cava dominates the Democrats with 42% of their support, while Penelas, who only draws 26% of the blue ballots, does better with NPAs, which is the largest number of undecideds at 30%.
That’s important because there is a lot to gain there. And its ironic that the fewest number of NPA votes are going to the only NPA candidate, Suarez.
A poll, of course, is simply a window in time. And while we all know how unreliable they were in 2016, the scenes from all these windows show DLC makes it to November.
Competing polls show Daniella Levine Cava in runoff for Miami-Dade mayor added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
