The Florida races, by the polls worth reading

This board shows every race on Florida ballots this fall with at least one poll that meets our bar, how each race leans in those polls, and how far to trust the lead. It doesn't predict a winner: a poll describes a race on the days it was taken, and final polls have missed before.

Race by race

Every poll since the nominees were set. Filled dots count toward the average lines; hollow dots were set aside. Hover or tap a poll for who ran it and why it counts.

U.S. SenateGovernor

Angie Nixon (D)

43.0%polling average

Moody +6.3

Bigger than Florida’s typical polling miss of 5.6 points

Ashley Moody (R)

49.3%polling average

Nixon (D)Moody (R)Set aside

Change Research, Sept. 9: Moody 47%, Nixon 47% (set aside: Paid for by a partisan group). Quantus, Sept. 10: Moody 50.1%, Nixon 42.7% (set aside: Pollster rated B/C). St. Pete Polls, Sept. 17: Moody 45.2%, Nixon 44.8% (set aside: Pollster rated C+). Stetson, Sept. 21: Moody 51%, Nixon 40% (set aside: Pollster rated B/C). InsiderAdvantage, Sept. 21: Moody 49.3%, Nixon 41.8%, Gillespie 2.4%. Change Research, Sept. 27: Moody 48%, Nixon 47% (set aside: Paid for by a partisan group). Mason-Dixon, Oct. 1: Moody 50%, Nixon 40%, Gillespie 2%. Targoz, Oct. 4: Moody 52%, Nixon 42% (set aside: Paid for by a Republican group). YouGov, Oct. 5: Moody 49%, Nixon 44%. St. Pete Polls, Oct. 7: Moody 46.8%, Nixon 44.9% (set aside: Pollster rated C+). Stetson, Oct. 9: Moody 52%, Nixon 41% (set aside: Pollster rated B/C). MDW Communications, Oct. 10: Moody 47.6%, Nixon 42.4% (set aside: Paid for by a Democratic group). ActiVote, Oct. 15: Moody 53.1%, Nixon 46.9% (set aside: No published method). UNF, Oct. 19: Moody 49%, Nixon 45%. co/efficient, Oct. 20: Moody 48%, Nixon 40%, Gillespie 2% (set aside: From a Republican campaign pollster)

Is the lead bigger than the error?

A poll’s margin of error applies to each candidate’s share. The error on the gap between them is close to twice as large. Bars show each pollster’s latest lead; whiskers show the error on that lead.

UNF
Oct. 19 | 1,471 LV

≈Inside the error

YouGov
Oct. 5 | 3,813 LV

✓Lead clears the error

Mason-Dixon
Oct. 1 | 625 LV

✓Lead clears the error

What’s still up for grabs

The average as 100 voters.

43Nixon (D)

49Moody (R)

8Undecided or other

8 in 100 voters haven’t picked either major candidate. That’s more than the 6.3-point gap.

How to read a lead

A poll's margin of error, usually 3 to 4 points, applies to each candidate's share. The error on the gap between two candidates is close to twice as large. So a 4-point lead in a poll with a 3.5-point margin of error is inside the error: the race could be tied.

Averages help. When several good pollsters agree, a lead is more believable than any single poll. But averages miss too, and the shading on the race board shows how far final polling averages here have missed in recent top races.

How we pick polls

A poll counts toward the board when it clears every one of these:

• A rated pollster: a Silver Bulletin grade of B or better (its January 2026 ratings), or membership in the American Association for Public Opinion Research's Transparency Initiative.
• Voters, not all adults: likely or registered voters, or simply "voters" when that's all the pollster says.
• At least 400 interviews.
• The real matchup: finished after the nominees were set, asking about the candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot.
• No partisan sponsor: a poll paid for by a campaign, a party or a partisan group is set aside, whichever side it favors, and so is a poll that a firm working mainly for one party's campaigns releases on its own.
• A published method: field dates, sample size, who was surveyed and how.
• Confirmed numbers: we read every number from the pollster's own release. A poll we couldn't confirm doesn't count.

The average is the plain mean of the latest poll from each qualifying pollster in the past 30 days, shown once three pollsters qualify. There is no weighting and no adjustment. With one or two qualifying pollsters, the board shows their polls one by one.

A race with no poll that meets the bar isn't on the board; it joins when one is released. Races that elect more than one person aren't shown, since there's no single margin to show. Polls that don't meet the bar stay on the page, hollow, with the reason.

Candidate photos come from the campaigns or official portraits, shown in grayscale on each party's color, the same way for every candidate.