Gubernatorial candidate Jay Collins is explaining away his marginal performance in opinion surveys by suggesting the numbers are cooked.
The Lieutenant Governor blames it all on “suppression polling” and says Byron Donalds, who has led in virtually all public surveys of the race, is not actually the front-runner.
“There’s a lot of suppression polling,” Collins said on Jacksonville radio. “You’ve been in this race for a year, you have the President’s endorsement, all this money, and you’re going backwards in real polls. So you have to put suppression pulling in like this.”
The Tampa Republican suggested that despite Donalds consistently polling near 50% with all other candidates in single digits, the numbers show that voters aren’t with the Congressman from Naples, and that Collins has more support than pollsters can find.
“Do you really believe when you talk to people, only 4% of the people are really against him or 4% are with me? Give me a break,” Collins said.
“Forty-two to 45% of the people are undecided because they don’t like Byron. They haven’t had time to actually get to hear us. We’re out here doing this. The fact is, if they would have wanted Byron, they would have supported him already. He’s not the clear front-runner. He’s not grabbing the hearts and minds of the people. And that’s the key to this election.”
Collins has not been able to get Gov. Ron DeSantis to endorse him, but continued to imply tacit support during the same interview. He suggested DeSantis believes Collins may be a better Governor than he himself is.
“DeSantis himself says, ‘Look, if something were to happen to me, Jay could step in Day 1. Wouldn’t miss a beat. We may be stronger. Who knows?’ That’s pretty high praise,” Collins said.
The candidate has continued to explain away the weaknesses in his campaign’s performance thus far. This week, he blamed lobbyists for problems fundraising.
