Polling averages now show only a single-digit advantage for the incumbent Democrat — and this is New York.
In early September, Trafalgar showed a single-digit race for governor of New York. The pollster was out on a limb, alone. I asked, at the time, whether that and other Trafalgar polls were for real — and I talked to Trafalgar’s Robert Cahaly, who made the case that Trafalgar was yet again seeing trends on its own (as it did in New Jersey in 2021) or ahead of other pollsters (as it did in Virginia in 2021).
Well, Trafalgar’s most recent poll, released at the beginning of October, shows a two-point race between Kathy Hochul and Lee Zeldin, but Trafalgar isn’t on its own anymore. Now, four of the five polls in the RealClearPolitics average show a single-digit race, the other three being Quinnipiac (Hochul +4), Schoen Cooperman (Hochul +6), and Marist (Hochul +8). Zeldin still has work to do, but this now looks like a race that could end up very close.
That has implications, even if Zeldin loses. New York has six competitive open House seats, plus relatively competitive reelection races for Democrat Sean Patrick Maloney and Republicans Nicole Malliotakis and Andrew Garbarino. Long Island alone — Zeldin’s home base — is home to Garbarino’s district (which is rated R+3 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index, i.e., three points more Republican than the average district), the district vacated by Zeldin (which is R+3), and the districts vacated by Democrats Kathleen Rice and Tom Suozzi (which are D+5 and D+2, respectively). If this race is close, Zeldin is likely leading in all of those districts.
Quinnipiac’s poll, released today, has more bad news for Hochul. She is underwater in job approval (46 percent approval, 49 percent disapproval) and favorability (44 percent favorable, 45 percent unfavorable) — both typically fatal to incumbents. Joe Biden’s approval rating is also underwater, 47 percent approval to 50 percent disapproval, and 30 points underwater with independents. Hochul trails Zeldin by 20 points, 57 percent to 37 percent, among independents. Then there’s the issue environment:
Asked to choose the most urgent issue facing New York State today, crime (28 percent) ranks first among likely voters followed by inflation (20 percent) and protecting democracy (14 percent).
There are wide gaps by political party.
Among Republicans, crime (42 percent) ranks first followed by inflation (31 percent).
Among Democrats, the top issues are protecting democracy (23 percent), crime (18 percent), and inflation (12 percent).
Among independents, crime (31 percent) ranks first followed by inflation (21 percent) and protecting democracy (11 percent).
Abortion, the focus of every single Hochul ad I have seen this cycle (and they’re running incessantly), is tops on the list for only 6 percent of likely voters, including 9 percent of Democrats, 8 percent of women, and 7 percent of voters under 35. Zero percent named Covid as the top issue.
Another symptom of how grim the issue environment is for Democrats: Quinnipiac has Chuck Schumer up twelve points against the delightfully named Newsmax host Joe Pinion. Marist showed Schumer up 13. Even Siena, which shows Hochul up eleven points, has Schumer up 20. Schumer is the current majority leader of the Senate. He won reelection by 43 points in 2016, 32 points into the teeth of the Republican wave in 2010, and 47 points in 2004. He hasn’t faced a competitive election since 1998, when he unseated Al D’Amato by a ten-point margin. He has outspent Pinion 77 to 1 ($30,262,060 to $392,729). And he’s still, if you credit the current polling, looking at something like a 15-point race in New York.