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More bad news for St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster. Although it’s still early, he now trails both Kathleen Ford and Rick Kriseman in a poll of likely St. Petersburg municipal voters.

In the latest survey conducted by St. Pete Polls, Kathleen Ford leads among likely voters with 29.5% of the vote, followed by Rick Kriseman at 25.4%. Mayor Bill Foster trails behind at 24.1%. Twenty-one percent of the city’s voters remain undecided.

There has also been some speculation about whether or not there is room for another candidate in this race, so we decided to toss in a few other candidates to test things out. Because the “Lens” project does not have a strong advocate in the race, we did a trial heat with Leslie Curran. There have been consistent rumors about the future political plans of Wengay Newton, so we did a trial heat with him as well. And although we didn’t think either person was interested in this race, we also plugged Ken Welch and Karl Nurse into scenarios as well. Here’s what we found…

City Councilmember Wengay Newton appears to be the strongest potential late entrant into the race. In a four-way matchup, Ford and Foster are deadlocked at 24%; Kriseman is hot on their heels at 23%, while Newton is at 15%. Thirteen percent of voters remain undecided. Newton would have a lot of room to grow his support as well, as our poll found him with only 37% support with black voters at this time, plus he has a surprisingly strong 13% standing with Republican voters.

City Councilmember Leslie Curran would start in a significantly weaker position. In a four-way matchup, Ford and Foster are deadlocked at 26%, followed by Kriseman at 22% and Curran at 10%. Fifteen percent of voters  remain undecided.

City Council Chair Karl Nurse’s plan to run for a second term on the council seems to be wise. Although he appears to be cruising to another term on the council, the picture would be a lot bleaker if he got into the mayoral race. In a four-way matchup, Ford would lead the way with 28%, followed by Foster at 24%. Kriseman would capture 21% and Nurse would be in fourth place with 11%. Fifteen percent of voters remain undecided.

Finally, County Commissioner Ken Welch would not fare too well either. In a four-way matchup, Kathleen Ford would lead the way with 28%, followed by Foster at 22%, Kriseman at 21% and Welch at 13%. Sixteen percent of voters remain undecided.

The poll was conducted by an automated phone call polling system. The results were then weighted to account for proportional differences between the respondents’ demographics and the demographics of the likely voter population in St. Petersburg. The demographics used were: party, race and age.

The likely voters polled were chosen at random within the registered voter population inside of the City of St. Petersburg. To be considered a likely voter, the registered voter had to have voted in a city election in either 2009 or 2011. This resulted in a significant shift in the demographics as compared to the total registered voter population. For example, there are approximately 9% more registered Republicans, 9% more white voters and 28% more voters over the age of 50 in the likely city election voter population. The scientific results shown in the summary below have a sample size of 417 and margin of error 4.8% at a 95% confidence level. This survey was conducted on behalf of CAF Productions, a company affiliated with this blog. If using this data elsewhere, we request that you link back to this post at Pinski Politics.