More likely to win, Barbara Bollier or Carlos Giménez?

[Meatball Ron]

As a South Floridian on the ground down here, can confirm: it's Bollier, & it's not even close.

Can you explain why the forecasters (Cook, Sabato) have downgraded DMP's chances from Lean D to toss-up in recent weeks? Did something happen? A bad poll? Better than expected fundraising from her challenger? Just confusing to me but maybe you have some perspectives from the ground - thanks!

[Meatball Ron]

As a South Floridian on the ground down here, can confirm: it's Bollier, & it's not even close.

Can you explain why the forecasters (Cook, Sabato) have downgraded DMP's chances from Lean D to toss-up in recent weeks? Did something happen? A bad poll? Better than expected fundraising from her challenger? Just confusing to me but maybe you have some perspectives from the ground - thanks!

There was a (seemingly internal) poll in July showing him leading her 47% to 42%, but the pollster - Meeting Street Insights - literally only sprung up in May, so that makes it a little suspect (in addition to the regular skepticism attached to district polls), & she's just been sort-of non-eventful during her tenure thus far, if that makes any sense; like, I can't really think of anything she's really 'done' per se, & so he has the name recognition that she just doesn't, so I guess they see her as vulnerably weak, but downgrading her chances from Lean D to Toss-up is the equivalent of thinking Kennedy was a shoe-in to beat Markey because he was leading him in those early polls from a year ago, with the inherent qualifier to those polls now obviously being that Kennedy was only beating Markey because he was a big-name Kennedy & Markey - even though he's a Senator - was more-or-less an invisible nobody. (And so it is down here in SFL: she - like Markey - has only recently just started finally appearing all over TV, & in doing so, she's making clear that she's progressive in language while knowing how to talk Cuba, Venezuela, & Latin American policy down here, so it's a very well-balanced campaign she's running for the general.)

In any event, since that poll, much of the public in Dade has turned on him for his COVID response & the botched 're-opening' therein (there's recently been much more community spread & resultant hospitalizations than there were at the beginning of the pandemic). And even before the pandemic, his transit plan went nowhere, the teachers unions have come to outright despise him, he has few signature accomplishments to speak of as Mayor, & he's been completely tethering himself to DeSantis/Trump & their messaging even though he literally endorsed Hillary in 2016.

Not to mention, there's the environment of this being a big Dem year, & the fact that FL-26 has been changing a lot over just the past couple cycles. So, yeah: I don't see how Giménez doesn't lose to DMP.

So helpful! Thank you!