Jay Collins says his campaign for the Republican nomination in the Governor’s race is surging at the right time.
During an interview on “Mornings with Maria,” the Lieutenant Governor claimed a new threshold of support in the race against Byron Donalds, James Fishback and Paul Renner.
“And I’ll tell you what, we have closed the gap. We are sitting over 30% right now, closing the gap with Byron Donalds. This is a real race. The Primary is not over, and we’re in this thing to win it,” Collins said, adding that he was “leading the state” along with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
It is unclear which poll Collins has showing him at 30%, but his internal polls have been much more generous to his campaign than public surveys of the race. His campaign released a survey three weeks ago showing him at 20%, suggesting a late-campaign surge not seen since Andrew Gillum ran for Governor eight years ago and hurtled from fourth place to first.
Public polling does not support the theory of a Collins surge. He averages 10% in independent surveys, with his high point being 15% in a James Madison Institute survey in February.
Collins has been dogged by unique controversies.
These include a retracted tweet attacking Republican megadonor Ken Griffin, a failed attempt to push Fishback off the ballot, and allegations of threats of violence in the workplace regarding Taryn Fenske.
Thursday’s interview touched on none of that, and host Maria Bartiromo appeared unaware of how long Collins actually served in his position.
Serving up a softball question about COVID, she erroneously said that Collins was in his “role when COVID was going on.”
In fact, Collins moved to the state during DeSantis’ first term, was elected to the Senate three years later, and then was picked to be Lieutenant Governor last year.
