Poll shows Jeb Bush holding big lead

ORLANDO, Fla., July 2 (UPI) -- A new poll Tuesday confirms that Republican Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is keeping his lead over former Attorney General Janet Reno and two other Democrats.

The poll taken by Florida Voter for the Orlando Sentinel and the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale shows Bush with a 53 percent to 37 percent lead over Reno with 10 percent undecided and a 49 percent to 31 percent edge over Tampa attorney Bill McBride. A whopping 20 percent of those polled are undecided in the Bush-McBride count.

Bush's general election lead over Reno has slipped from 22 points to 16 points since a similar poll in January. Against McBride it dropped from 28 points to 18 points.

Bush, the president's brother, is unopposed in the Sept. 10 Republican primary, but in the Democratic vote, Reno gets a 45-18 percent advantage over McBride with a third candidate, state Sen. Daryl Jones, a distant third at 4 percent.

Meanwhile, Reno's campaign may be undergoing a shakeup. Three staffers -- Political Director Ed Dixon and field organizers Helen Strain and Steve Fitzer -- have resigned.

All three were expected to create an efficient statewide organization, which critics say has not happened.

Reno's campaign manager, Mo Elleithee, declined to say why the three had left or if they had been asked to leave. "We respected their decision to leave. They were all great members of this team," she said.

Dixon said the departures at the same time were coincidental. He said he resigned to devote more time to his post as Gadsden County commissioner in the Florida panhandle.

The McBride camp viewed the resignations as signs of trouble for Reno.

"This says there's lots of problems with the Reno campaign," said state Sen. Skip Campbell, a McBride backer.

McBride did not comment on the departures, but said he was delighted with the poll results, particularly against Bush. He also was happy that the number of voters who never heard of him dropped from 62 percent to 46 percent.

"With people not knowing me, that's unbelievable," McBride said of his numbers against Bush. "All I've got to do is let people know who I am. They still haven't heard our message. We win if those numbers hold up."

Todd Harris, communications director for Bush, said Bush is running as hard for re-election as he would if he was a big underdog.

"The best way to assure that you squander a lead is to start feeling comfortable with it," Harris said. "Despite what the polls say, we'll continue running as if we were 20 points behind."

The poll of 807 voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 points for the general election and 5.2 percent for a smaller sample for the Democratic primary. It was conducted June 18-26.