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Vice President Kamala Harris is inching up her commanding lead over former President Donald Trump in New York but remains neck-and-neck with the Republican among the state’s suburban voters, a newly released Siena College poll of likely voters shows.
“Harris has widened her lead over Trump in New York, leading by 19 points in a head-to-head matchup,” Siena College poll spokesperson Steven Greenberg wrote in a statement.
But the race is a lot closer on Long Island and in some suburban Hudson Valley Counties, the poll shows.
Harris leads Trump 52% to 47% in the suburbs including Long Island as well as Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange Counties. The poll has a margin of error of 4.1%.
Trump led Harris in the suburbs 50% to 48%, according to last month’s Siena poll.
The popularity of the top of the ticket could play a major role, especially related to turnout, in the several battleground congressional districts in the Big Apple suburbs.
The poll suggests that ballot proposition 1 has a significant amount of support despite a massive campaign led by Republicans in opposition to the measure.
A whopping 69% of respondents told Siena pollsters they would support “an amendment to the state constitution that has been called the equal rights amendment.”
Opponents say Prop 1 could unleash a laundry list of ills upon the Empire State such as allowing biological boys to play girls’ sports and giving non-citizens the right to vote. Proponents say the measure would enshrine already significantly protected abortion rights into the state constitution.
US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democratic incumbent, is also polling well above former NYPD detective and entrepreneur Mike Sapraicone. Gillibrand, who is vying for her third term, was the favored candidate of 57% of respondents compared with Sapraicone’s 31%.
Both candidates, however, struggle with name recognition amongst New Yorkers.
“Interestingly, three in ten voters continue to not know or not have an opinion of Gillibrand. Sapraicone remains essentially unknown to nine in ten voters,” Greenberg noted.
Gillibrand and Sapraicone will face off in their only debate on Wednesday night.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is not on the ballot next month, is seeing her dismally low approval rating marginally increase — 36% of respondents gave Hochul a favorable rating and 51% an unfavorable rating in October’s poll.
That’s up from 34% favorable and 54% unfavorable last month.
“The good news for Hochul is that both her favorability and job approval ratings are up a little. The bad news is that they’re up from all-time lows and have a ways to go before reaching positive territory,” Greenberg said.
Last month’s Siena poll showed Hochul with a lower net favorability rating than Donald Trump in deep blue New York.