With a week to go before the first ballots in St. Petersburg's mayoral election are mailed to overseas voters, challenger Rick Kriseman has opened up a ten point lead over incumbent Bill Foster according to the latest survey from St. Pete Polls.
Kriseman leads Foster 50 to 40 percent among the city's registered voters and 49 to 43 percent among those voters who cast a ballot in the primary election.
Hamstringing Foster is his upside job performance rating. Forty-six percent of residents approve of his performance as mayor, while 54% do not.
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Foster says his record stands on its own.
“I think most people feel like St. Petersburg’s going in the right direction and I want people to look around. Look at the construction, look at the jobs, look at downtown, look at the neighborhoods,” said Foster.
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Foster said he is prepared to debate on topics like the pier and the Rays, saying his leadership style has suited the city well.
“Let’s get down to visions and let’s talk about the issues,” he said.
Meanwhile, Kriseman says he plans to continue to go after those who voted for Kathleen Ford.
“And I’m gonna work hard to earn their votes. Because if there’s one thing that I’ve learned on this campaign, is that the residents of this city are craving leadership and honesty, and action and results,” said Kriseman.
The poll was conducted by an automated phone call polling system. The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents’ demographics and the demographics of the registered voter population within the city. The demographics used were: party, race and age.
The voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population within the city.
The scientific results shown in the summary below have a sample size of 1127 respondents and a margin of error of 2.9% at a 95% confidence level.
