State Sen. Shevrin Jones is positioned strongly heading into the Primary homestretch for Florida’s 24th Congressional District, according to newly released polling that shows him leading among nearly every South Florida demographic.
National Victory Strategies, a Washington-, Miami- and West Palm Beach-based media and market research firm that mostly caters to GOP clients, surveyed 300 likely Democratic Primary voters July 24-28 by phone and text.
It found that the CD 24 Primary is largely a two-horse race, so to speak, with Jones leading at 35% support among likely Primary voters and Miami-Dade Commissioner Oliver Gilbert holding 28% of the vote.
Lawyer Kendrick Meek, whose congressional pedigree includes a grandmother and father who served in Congress, holds a distant third place at 9% support.
No other candidate is polled at more than 2%, and a whopping 23% of voters remain undecided less than three weeks before Election Day.
Notably, despite being more than a decade older than Meek, Jones, 42, commands the support of every Generation Z voter polled, with all 100 respondents aged 18-29 saying they plan to cast ballots for him Aug. 18.
Jones enjoys sizable leads among voters 30-64, with the margin narrowing as the age level rises, while Gilbert has a razor-thin, one-voter edge among voters 65 and older.
Jones also leads among Black, White and non-Hispanic voters who identify as belonging to another ethnicity, while Meek and Gilbert — in that order — lead Jones among Hispanic Democrats.
Male voters narrowly prefer Gilbert over Jones in the crowded field, while Jones has a 12-point lead among women voters, 36% to 24%.
The poll has a 5.7-percentage-point margin of error at the 95% confidence level.
A separate question narrowing the Primary field from seven to three candidates — Jones, Gilbert and Meek — saw Jones’ support rise to 38%, while Gilbert’s support fell to 27% and Meek’s backing grew to 13%.
The absence of Marshall Davis, Jean Monestime, Rudy Moise and Roderick Vereen from that question also let Jones take the lead in support among male voters — 39%, compared to 30% for Gilbert and 15% for Meek — while he maintained or grew his lead in every other demographic except among Hispanic voters, of whom 26% said they’d support Meek, compared to 21% apiece for Jones and Gilbert.
National Victory Strategies said it took survey samples evenly throughout CD 24 — which covers Miami Gardens in Miami-Dade and Hollywood, Miramar and Pembroke Park in Broward County — and weighted the demographic breakdown of likely Democratic Primary voters.
The National Victory poll somewhat contradicts St. Pete Polls survey figures released this month, which found Gilbert leading Jones 27% to 24%, but within that query’s 5.6-point margin of error.
That poll also found Meek with 9% support overall.
Republican Te Mayonna Brown, independent Andy Daro and write-in candidate Patricia Gonzalez are also running.
The winner of the Nov. 3 General Election will succeed retiring Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, who endorsed Gilbert last month as her preferred successor.
