Yesterday, on MSNBC’s Daily Rundown, Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd asked Kendrick Meek about an unsourced story in Friday’s Wall Street Journal saying a deal may be in the works for him to withdraw from the race. Meek strenuously denied it, and pointed to the fact that former President Clinton is coming to Florida next week to campaign for him. (Click here for the clip.)
Today I heard a Democratic strategist say this is the time in a campaign when the national Party has to decide where to spend its remaining money – which means deciding which races are lost causes that should no longer be funded. From Chuck Todd today, about House races:
There are a number of Democratic-held House districts the [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] will be making tough choices about in the next few days because if they want to pull BACK a buy they promised a specific TV station, there’s no penalty if they do it in the next few days.
The latest polls show Crist increasing his lead over Meek, and Rubio increasing his lead over Crist, with Meek falling further behind. In the most recent 15 polls listed on RealClearPolitics.com, Rubio has been ahead of Crist by between 2 percentage points (a CCN/Time poll of 899 registered voters taken between 9/2 and 9/7) and 25 percentage points (a Rasmussen Reports poll of 750 likely voters on 10/7).
Meek hasn’t polled ahead of Crist in any of the polls listed, which go back to November 2009.
If you vote for Meek now – with your absentee ballot, or in early voting – which begins next week, and he later pulls out of the race, you’ll have wasted the opportunity to cast a vote against Rubio by voting for Crist. I don’t want to have to do it, but I want to preserve the option.
At the same time, if you vote for Crist now and some damaging story later comes out (was he ever a witch?), you may wish you had voted for Meek.
So don’t vote yet! Let’s just continue to wait to see how this shakes out.