He won by less than 40k votes (something like less than half a percent) [1], I’m sorry but that’s a dangerous game to play if you want to win general elections. Polls this early don’t matter, polls the weeks before election does. This is nothing but political grand standing.

Also independent voters are a misnomer. Independents will typically vote for their preferred party the majority of the time, they're still partisans they just don't vote in primaries. [2] [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_gubernatorial_ele...

[2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/few-americans-who-ident...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/01/0...