Cuomo
LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. (Legal Newsline) - New York Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo maintains leads of more than 30 percentage points against his Republican opponents, according to the newest poll results.
According to a Siena College poll of registered New York voters released Wednesday, Cuomo continues to pound Rick Lazio, a former U.S. Representative for the state, and Carl Paladino, a Buffalo real estate developer, in both head-to-head and three-way match-ups.
"With less than 11 weeks until election day, Andrew Cuomo continues to be the prohibitive favorite to be elected New York's next governor. Neither Rick Lazio nor Carl Paladino has made a dent in the favorable view voters have of Cuomo. Nor have they made much progress in closing the large electoral gap Cuomo enjoys over both of them -- individually or collectively," Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said in a statement.
Currently, Cuomo leads Lazio 60 to 26 percent, compared to 60 to 28 percent in July. The attorney general's lead over Paladino is 60 to 27 percent, down from 64 to 23 percent last month.
Meanwhile, in a three-way race, Cuomo garners 56 percent to Lazio's 19 percent and Paladino's 12 percent. In the survey, Lazio was identified as a Republican and Paladino was identified as an Independent.
In a three-way race identifying Paladino as the Republican candidate and Lazio as the conservative, Cuomo still leads 56 percent to Lazio's 16 percent and Paladino's 14 percent.
Voters, according to the survey results, think Cuomo will be more effective than either of the Republicans on seven key issues that affect the state's residents. Those issues include:
-Ensuring the affordability of quality health care;
-Improving elementary, secondary and higher education;
-Reforming state government ethics laws;
-Fighting for fair, balanced, on-time state budgets;
-Creating new jobs for New Yorkers;
-Addressing the rate of local property tax increases; and
-Holding the line on state taxes.
"Neither Lazio nor Paladino has found traction on an issue that gives them an advantage over Cuomo on which to appeal to voters," Greenberg said.
Meanwhile, Paladino, according to the poll results, has closed the gap against Lazio to 13 points among Republicans.
The poll was conducted by the Siena Research Institute -- an independent, non-partisan research institute -- Aug. 9-16 by calling 788 New York registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Sampling, the company says, was conducted via random digit dialing "weighted to reflect known population patterns."
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by e-mail at jessica@legalnewsline.com.