Contact: Joe Caruso at 518-783-2901
Siena
New York Poll:
Spitzer
Beats Pataki; Loses to Giuliani
Hillary
Crushes Pataki and Beats Rudy
Democratic
A.G. Candidates Unknown
Loudonville,
NY – If
the election were held today, Governor George Pataki would be easily
beaten in seeking a fourth term, and would be trounced if he challenged Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton for the U.S. Senate, according to a new Siena (College)
Research Institute poll of New York voters released today.
Pataki
would lose to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer 51-35 percent and he would be
beaten 58-32 percent in a race for Senate against Clinton.
“After ten years as governor, George Pataki does not have the support of the majority of New Yorkers,” said Joe Caruso, Director of Polling for the Siena Research Institute (SRI). “As things stand now, he couldn’t get re-elected to a fourth term and he’d get crushed in a Senate race against Senator Clinton.”
“Rudy
Giuliani, however, would beat Spitzer handily – today (49-40 percent).
And in a match up of two New York political titans, a race between Rudy
and Hillary for the U.S. Senate would have the Senator winning re-election
comfortably (52-43 percent),” Caruso said.
Other
than Pataki, New Yorkers have a very favorable view of the major political
figures:
George Pataki:
39 percent favorable; 45 percent unfavorable
Charles Schumer:
63 percent
favorable; 20 percent unfavorable
Hillary Clinton:
61 percent favorable; 33 percent
unfavorable
Rudy Giuliani:
61 percent favorable;
28 percent unfavorable
Eliot Spitzer:
48 percent favorable; 17 percent unfavorable
Siena
asked Democrats for their preference in the Democratic primary for Attorney
General:
Andrew Cuomo:
19 percent
Mark Green:
17 percent
Denise
O’Donnell:
4 percent
Richard Brodsky:
1 percent
Michael Gianaris:
1 percent
Charlie King:
1 percent
Sean Maloney:
0 percent
Don’t know/no
opinion:
56 percent
“For
the moment, the winner in the Democratic Attorney General’s primary is ‘none
of the above,’” Caruso said. “While
Cuomo and Green have some name recognition and the early lead, the rest of the
candidates are not yet on the voters’ radar screen.”
New
York voters are more concerned about health and education than other major
issues. Voters were asked to
indicate how important six issues were on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being most
important and 1 being not at all important.
|
|
Most Important (5) |
Somewhat
Important (3,4) |
Not
Important (1,2) |
|
Education: |
64% |
28% |
7% |
|
Health
care: |
59% |
30% |
10% |
|
State
budget: |
57% |
33% |
9% |
|
Crime: |
46% |
40% |
12% |
|
Environment:
|
39% |
50% |
11% |
|
State
government reform: |
33% |
46% |
16% |
“While
reforming Albany is important to some, it’s not close in importance to issues
like education, health care and the state budget for most voters,” Caruso
said.
The
Empire Page, in partnership with the Siena Research Institute, previously
released the results of two questions where 58 percent of New Yorkers said that
they believe the Governor should not run for re-election, and while 27 percent
said that they would vote to re-elect him if he does run, 57 percent said they
would prefer to vote for someone else.
Empire/SRI
will be releasing results of two questions every month.
SRI will conduct extensive polls of the New York electorate on a regular
basis.
This SRI survey was conducted January 31-February 3,
2005 by telephone calls to 621 New York State registered voters.
It has a margin of error of + 3.9 points.
For more information or comments, please call Joe Caruso, SRI Director of
Polling, at 518-783-2901. Survey
cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at
www.siena.edu/sri/surveys.asp.