Lt. Gov. Jay Collins‘ told viewers of Real America’s Voice this week that he finally found a survey that wasn’t “suppression polling.”
His own.
“I jumped in this race about 2.5, almost three months ago now, and we are slowly moving up: two to four to seven to 11. Internal polling has us kicking around 15 to 18% right now and closing that gap bit by bit by bit,” Collins said, contrasting his dynamic effort with the “progressively backwards” efforts of rival Byron Donalds over his last year in the campaign.
Collins, who moved to Florida in 2019, proceeded to provide a lesson in political history from before his time to viewers, linking himself to the current and most recent chief executives.
He compared himself to Gov. Ron DeSantis. He said that “no one heard” of the three-term Congressman who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, presumably putting himself on the same level.
Then he invoked one of Donalds’ staunchest backers, Sen. Rick Scott, saying he won even though Attorney General Bill McCollum had “all the endorsements, all the money” by way of suggesting that Collins could defeat the establishment the way Scott did in his first campaign.
Collins has blasted “experts, X accounts, and, of course, the pay-to-play media” for scrutiny on his campaign that has typically polled closer to two and four than seven and 11, with fundraising largely derived from one big donor, and without an endorsement from the man who used to call him the “Chuck Norris of Florida politics” a lot more than he does these days.
Prior to those attacks, speculation swirled that DeSantis’ second-in-command would suspend his campaign Thursday, in the wake of a canceled meet and greet in Cape Coral and “unforeseen circumstances” keeping him from last Friday’s Central Florida Tiger Bay meeting.
Since then, he released a video shot from a car, did an accusation-heavy press conference, bought an ad via the “Quiet Professionals FL” political committee, and has apparently surged in the poll he commissioned.
