Crist is leading the Democratic pack. Taking on DeSantis is a different story.

TALLAHASSEE — Rep. Charlie Crist has emerged as the frontrunner in the Democratic primary to be Florida’s next governor — but faces huge obstacles in his attempt to unseat Ron DeSantis.

With six months to go before the primary election, Crist has outraised his Democratic opponents, picked up the backing of many of Florida’s most influential Black politicians and has significantly outperformed in recent polls, including one out Tuesday that has him besting primary challengers by double-digits.

Joshua Karp, an adviser to Crist’s campaign, said the polling and fundraising numbers shows that the 65-year-old Republican-turned-Democrat is “running a powerful campaign fueled by the momentum of our grassroots supporters.”

But the question is which Democratic candidate — if any — can actually energize Democrats in a state where Republicans have erased a decades-old voter registration advantage, President Joe Biden’s approval rating is underwater and that Donald Trump won by 3 points in a state previously known for razor-thin margins.

DeSantis, too, has seen his profile in Florida and across the nation rise after his fights against Covid-19 mandates as well as his full-throated embrace of culture war issues like eradicating critical race theory and railing against illegal immigration. That has translated to sky-high approval ratings and more than $81 million in cash. A recent Mason-Dixon poll had DeSantis’ job approval rating at 53 percent overall but 89 percent among Republicans, and with an 8-point lead over Crist.

That same poll had Crist, who once served as a Republican governor but switched parties in the aftermath of the tea party wave, with a 17-point edge over Democratic primary challenger Nikki Fried, the state’s agriculture commissioner, and a 41-point margin over Annette Taddeo, a Miami-area state senator.

Crist’s ascent comes as Fried, his main primary opponent, has begun restructuring her campaign. On Tuesday, her campaign announced that her chief of staff, Matthew Van Name, would be shifting from his job in state government to the position of senior adviser and strategic manager for the campaign. Van Name’s hiring comes in the aftermath of Fried’s campaign manager — Farah Melendez — departing after just six months on the job.

Fried said in a statement that hiring Van Name was a prelude to her getting “fired up to win this primary and beat DeSantis … It’s about to get real.”

Brad Coker, CEO and managing director for Mason-Dixon, said there’s still time for the primary dynamics to shift, noting that the same poll that has Crist ahead in the Democratic field also shows that 26 percent of primary voters remain undecided.

“Although politically active observers are following this, the average voter hasn’t paid much attention,” Coker said. “They don’t know Charlie Crist is in the race. They don’t know who Nikki Fried is.”

Crist, whose St. Petersburg-area congressional seat is being altered during redistricting, jumped into the race for governor last May, getting ahead of Fried by a few weeks, although her candidacy was widely anticipated. During his decades in Florida politics, Crist has won three statewide elections, including once as governor. He lost to Marco Rubio in a race for the U.S. Senate in 2010 and narrowly lost to then-Gov. Rick Scott four years later.

Crist has brushed aside doubts over his ability to appeal to younger voters and a diverse Democratic electorate and instead compared his quest to Biden’s bid for the presidency. Since May, Crist has taken a methodical yet traditional approach, lining up endorsements, traveling the state and even releasing policy proposals on pocketbook issues he says are being ignored by DeSantis. He’s also picked up tens of thousands of individual donors along the way, for a total of $4.26 million in the bank at the end of January.

Taddeo, 54, who is Hispanic and from Miami-Dade County, entered the race late and is hindered as a lawmaker since, under Florida law, she is not allowed to raise money during the state’s two-month legislative session. She has acknowledged being an “underdog,” but in early February launched a plan to visit all 67 counties over the next several months.

Taddeo, who ran for lieutenant governor in 2014 as part of Crist’s ticket, said she was “not surprised or concerned” about Crist’s position right now or his polling numbers. She noted that Crist was running far ahead of Rubio before the Senate race he eventually lost.

“You should probably ask Gov. Adam Putnam about polling this far out,” Taddeo said, making a reference to the GOP agriculture commissioner who was out in front of DeSantis until Trump backed the Republican congressman in the primary.

Fried, 44, has a near constant presence on social media, where she has she has positioned herself as the antithesis to DeSantis. But Fried, who is Jewish, has made some unforced errors — such as comparing DeSantis to Adolf Hitler, a move that brought criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.

While Fried has gained plenty of followers — she has more than three times the numbers on Twitter that Crist does — she trails Crist in cash on hand by about $700,000. Both campaigns combined have only about 10 percent of what DeSantis has in the bank.

Kevin Cate, a media consultant for Fried, contends that she remains well positioned for the primary. In a memo he circulated last week to donors and supporters, Cate pointed to a Public Policy Polling poll commissioned by a supporter that found Fried trailing Crist by just 2 points, or within the margin of error.

Cate on Tuesday also noted that that both Fried and Crist were trailing DeSantis by about the same margin in this week’s Mason-Dixon poll. (The poll had DeSantis up 8 points over Crist and 11 points over Fried.) He added that there’s “lots more room for Nikki to grow because she’s new and we haven’t really started yet.”

Coker said that such a strategy may help her make the primary competitive.

“Everybody knows Crist for the most part,” Coker said. “His Achilles heel is he’s run statewide as a Republican. I think Fried may be able to make some hay on Charlie’s political fluidity. Those who vote in the primary are more activist. She may be able to cash in there with people who are much more party oriented.”

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, a previous version misstated which race Charlie Crist lost to Rick Scott in 2014. This story has been corrected.