Reports suggest Governor Crist of Florida believes he will not win the Republican Senate primary against Marco Rubio, and so is about to run as an Independent. This is similar to the strategy Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman used (successfully) in 2008 when he lost to Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary.

A big question with an Independent bid is finances. Will Crist have enough money to fund a strong campaign without official Republican backing?

This article suggests some Republican donors will want their donations back from Crist’s campaign. One interesting line in the article states Crist “still boasts a $7.6 million war chest.”

That sounds oddly like the amount declared in his campaign’s March 31st report ($7,631,858). In other words, that number is probably out of date. My guess is that it’s lower now.

The article suggests as much later on: ““We’re not planning on taking no for an answer,” [Connolly] said flatly. “If he’s spent $7.5 million in a month, that’s a pretty good indication of how he’ll be spending taxpayer money in Washington.”” A month from when? It’s April 29th – that is, almost a month from March 31st.

Regardless, Crist’s advantage over Rubio as of March 31st was significant enough ($7.6M to $3.9M) to suggest he’s not completely out of it.

[Update: this article has more details on Crist's independent campaign. It also claims he has $6M in the bank, instead of the $7.6M claimed in the article linked to above, which makes more sense.]