The campaigns of Gov. Kathy Hochul and her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin of New York’s First Congressional District, touted dueling polls last week. Both put the incumbent in the lead, but by widely differing margins.
A Siena College Research Institute survey of 655 likely voters conducted between Sept. 16 and Sept. 25 gave the governor, running on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, a 17-percentage-point lead over Mr. Zeldin, the Republican and Conservative Party candidate, 54 percent to 37 percent. The margin is up slightly from a poll conducted by the institute in August, which put Ms. Hochul in the lead, 53 percent to 39 percent.
Mr. Zeldin’s campaign released the results of an internal poll conducted for it by McLaughlin and Associates that showed the governor holding just a 5.8-percentage-point lead over Mr. Zeldin, 50.7 to 44.9 percent, with 4.4 percent undecided. That poll surveyed 800 likely voters between Sept. 21 and Sept. 25. An August poll conducted by McLaughlin and Associates had the governor leading Mr. Zeldin by eight percentage points, 48 percent to 40 percent.
The Siena College poll found that Mr. Zeldin held a narrow lead among independent voters, 45 percent to 42 percent, but that his support among Republicans had declined to 77 percent, from 84 percent in an August poll.
“To close or even narrow a 17-point gap, he would need to win a far greater share of independents, solidify Republican support, as well as pick off some more Democrats,” the Siena pollster Steven Greenberg said in a statement accompanying the results.
The governor, who succeeded Gov. Andrew Cuomo following his resignation in August 2021, leads by 61 percent to 29 percent among women, the Siena College poll found, and by 48 percent to Mr. Zeldin’s 44 percent among men. Her favorability rating ticked up, since August, from 46 to 47 percent, as did her job approval rating, from 52 to 53 percent.
The same poll found that Mr. Zeldin has a negative 33-to-31-percent favorability rating, down from 31 to 28 percent in August, but also that 36 percent of voters have no opinion about him. The poll found that 23 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of the governor, while 12 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of Mr. Zeldin.
The McLaughlin and Associates poll concluded that Mr. Zeldin leads the governor narrowly in Suffolk County, 51 percent to 49 percent, as well as in Nassau County, Staten Island, and most upstate regions, excluding Buffalo and Albany.
The Siena College Research Institute poll delivered good news for other Democratic candidates, finding Senator Chuck Schumer leading Joe Pinion, his Republican challenger, by 19 percentage points, 55 percent to 36 percent. State Attorney General Letitia James leads her Republican challenger, Michael Henry, by 16 percentage points, according to the poll, and State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli leads Paul Rodriguez, the Republican candidate, 52 percent to 29 percent.
“In the eight weeks since the last Siena poll, little has changed in the overall dynamic of the gubernatorial or any of the statewide races,” Mr. Greenberg said. “The four Democratic incumbents had leads between 14 and 21 points over their Republican challengers in August, and now have leads of between 16 and 23 points. Now, with fewer than six weeks until Election Day, those Republican challengers — underfunded compared to the Democrats — have their work cut out for them in a state with more than twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans, more independents than registered Republicans, and where the G.O.P. hasn’t won a statewide election in 20 years.”
