Down in Florida, Bill Nelson is proving people wrong.
The two-term, 12-year Democratic senator is bucking a nationwide trend by putting up a commanding lead in the polls and in fund-raising for his re-election. Despite recent Republican successes -- plus the last two election cycles, where far-right Republican challengers have generally captured voters in primary insurgent challenges -- Nelson is now poised for a comfortable re-election.
Nelson leads all of his potential GOP competitors by multiple-double-digits.
The latest polling average compiled by the political Web site RealClearPolitics, for example, shows Nelson ahead by 45-36.6 percent against his closest Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV - a spread of 8.4 percent that is well outside the poll's margin of error.
Mack leads all of his GOP competitors in the Aug. 14 Republican Senate primary - former Sen. George LeMieux, state Sen. President Mike Haridopolos, and former state House Majority Leader Adam Hasner. The closest polling edge is Mack over LeMieux. By 30 points.
What explains Nelson's success so far? As the only statewide-elected Democrat in the past decade, analysts say he has experience, and he knows the Sunshine State. Nelson is a former congressman, state treasurer and state insurance commissioner.
"His advantage is, No. 1, he's very smart at Florida politics," says Matthew Corrigan, a professor of political science and head of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville. "In other words, he's a Democrat who makes his presence known in the northern part of the state just as much as in the southern part of the state, and not all Democrats do that.
"So he's clever. He's a smart politician. And secondly, you have to look at the quality of his opposition, especially the last two cycles. It's not been strong. This time around, you have a real brutal Republican primary. So Nelson here has advantages that Democrats elsewhere don't have."
Nelson also has money. The senior senator has $9.5 million in the bank, compared to $1.4 million for Mack, $1.45 million for Haridopolos and $1.2 million for LeMieux.
Corrigan noted that Nelson can also take advantage of the fact that 2012 is a presidential election year, which boosts voter turnout. And again, Corrigan said, he has experience at statewide campaigns.
"He's done this a couple of times," Corrigan said. "He portrays himself as a moderate, which is good. He's got money. And the core of his opposition hasn't been real strong. So you put all that together, and that's, you know, a recipe for re-election… In a state with a heavy turnout like Florida, in an election year, it does say a lot that he's staying alive."
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June 12, 2026 17:14 ET Major central bank action was the focus this week in economic news. The European Central Bank became the first major central bank to move in response to the rising inflationary pressures in the backdrop of the conflict in the Middle East. In North America, the U.S. inflation and trade data as well as Canada’s central bank decision gained attention. The Chinese trade data was the main news in Asia.