[Borderwatch]

A new poll has found that Florida Governor Charlie Crist's campaign for the U.S. Senate is currently in deep trouble. The new Rasmussen poll of likely GOP voters found Crist and his Republican opponent, Marco Rubio, are tied with 43 percent of the vote. This is a huge swing from just a few months ago when most experts believed Crist would win in a landslide.

While Crist's numbers have been in an almost free fall, Rubio's name recognition amongst Republicans has rapidly grown. The new poll found 34 percent of GOP voters now view Rubio "very favorably." In the same poll in August, Rubio's "very favorable" ratings were at 18 percent.

n the flip side, Crist's numbers have fallen off a cliff. Only 19 percent of likely GOP voters have a "very favorable" opinion of the governor. According to Rasmussen, that's a double-digit decline since August.

Crist's precipitous drops in favorability ratings are tied to Rubio's ability to link Crist and President Barack Obama, who is loathed by many GOP voters. Rubio has repeatedly hammered Crist's decision to support the president's $787 billion stimulus bill. The irony though is Rubio has admitted he would have accepted the stimulus money as well, but Rubio adds that Crist's problem was he supported it from the beginning which Rubio said he wouldn't have done.

The Florida GOP race is being followed closely by national political watchers to see what, if any, impact the tea party movement might have amongst GOP voters. In other political races, the "tea party" has threatened to run its own candidate if the GOP candidate isn't far enough to the right. The problem for the GOP is that if a tea party candidate can shave off enough support from the Republican candidate, both parties will lose.

For example, the Rasmussen poll found that on a generic ballot, the Republicans have a seven point lead over Democrats in the 2010 Senate race. But, if a "tea party" candidate jumps into the race, everything changes. Rasmussen found in a three-way race, Democrats would pull in 36 percent of the vote, the tea party candidate will bring in 23 percent and Republicans would finish last at 18 percent.

Click here to see the entire Rasmussen Poll.