Freshman GOP Rep. Anthony D’Esposito is on the ropes in Nassau County, trailing Democratic rival Laura Gillen by 12 percentage points in New York’s swing 4th Congressional District, according to a new poll.
The Newsday/Siena College survey released Tuesday found Gillen with the support of 53% of likely voters, while D’Esposito could only garner 41% backing in the race rated as a “toss-up” by the non-partisan Cook Political Report.
In the 4th District’s presidential contest, Democrat Kamala Harris leads Republican Donald Trump by the same 12-point margin, 54%-42%.
D’Esposito, who defeated Gillen in the same matchup two years ago by 3.6 percentage points, has been under fire since the New York Times reported last month that the former NYPD detective hired a purported mistress to work in his Garden City district office last year.
D’Esposito campaign pollster John McLaughlin, whose own surveys have the Republican slightly ahead, disputed the poll’s findings.
The Newsday/Siena survey has both Harris (66%) and Gillen (62%) winning Jewish voters by at least two-to-one over Trump and D’Esposito — both of whom received just 31% support from the demographic.
McLaughlin argued that the survey, which was in the field Oct. 13-17, undercounted observant Jews by overlapping with the start of the Sukkot holiday.
The GOP pollster also claimed Tuesday’s survey erred by under-sampling Jews, which McLaughlin has making up 20% of the NY-04 electorate compared to 13% in the Newsday/Siena survey.
“They have Gillen winning Jewish voters 62%-31%,” McLaughlin said.
“We had D’Esposito winning Jewish voters 57%-35%, because he was winning among Orthodox Jews 81%-4%.”
McLaughlin also claimed that the poll undercounted self-declared conservatives, who made up 27% of the Newsday/Siena sample.
“Conservatives in their poll vote D’Esposito 88%-10%,” he said.
“They underpolled conservatives by 9 points.”
But Nassau County Democratic leader and state party chairman Jay Jacobs said the survey “reflects what we’re feeling on the ground.
“Laura Gillen is going to win substantially,” added Jacobs, who noted the 4th District’s large black population — including a sizable Haitian immigrant community in Elmont.
D’Esposito, Jacobs suggested, was done no favors by Trump spreading claims that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating dogs and cats — which the Democratic leader said offended voters in the district.
Out on Long Island’s East End, Newsday/Siena showed another freshman Republican, Nick LaLota, leading Democrat John Avlon by just three percentage points — 47% to 44% — well inside the poll’s 4.5 percentage point margin of error.
In the presidential contest, Harris leads Trump 49%-48% among likely 1st District voters.
The Newsday/Siena College poll surveyed 526 likely voters in the 1st District and 532 likely voters in the 4th District.
The margin of error was plus-or-minus 4.5 percentage points in the 1st District and plus-or-minus 4.4 percentage points in the 4th District.