https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Cuomo-has-big-lead-in-race-for-Democratic-12839125.php
Nixon gains ground, but Cuomo leads 2-to-1 in primary poll
Siena survey shows governor still dominant in Democratic contest
Updated 3:57 pm, Tuesday, April 17, 2018
ALBANY — Cynthia Nixon has a long way to go if she wants to wrestle the Democratic nomination away from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, according to a Siena Research Institute poll released Tuesday.
The actress and activist is trailing the two-term incumbent by 31 percentage points, with Cuomo winning support of 58 percent of registered Democrats in a head-to-head race. This actually represents a tightening from the middle of March, when Nixon was behind Cuomo 19 percent to 66 percent in a Siena poll released as her candidacy was just getting off the ground.
Siena polling spokesman Steve Greenberg noted that Cuomo has a three-to-one lead among Democratic voters in New York City, where more than half of the party's primary voters typically come from. In upstate New York, where Cuomo's 2014 Democratic challenger Zephyr Teachout was able to make inroads during that year's primary, the governor's lead narrows to an 11-point edge over Nixon in the poll. Nixon does have a 5 percent lead with conservative Democratic voters, but they will make up a tiny fraction of the party's primary turnout in September.
In response to the Siena poll, Nixon campaign spokeswoman Sarah Ford maintained that enthusiasm and support was growing for their effort.
“With momentum on our side, we are focused on the work ahead of us and introducing Cynthia’s plan for a better New York all across the state,” she said.
Prospects are only slightly less bleak for the Republicans vying to challenge Cuomo in November: Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro is behind Cuomo by 26 percentage points, and state Sen. John DeFrancisco of Syracuse is losing by 24 percentage points.
The current Republican deficits are slightly better than where Republican Rob Astorino was four years ago in his bid to unseat Cuomo. Astorino ultimately got 40 percent of the vote and Cuomo won 54 percent.
With months to go until voters actually cast their ballots, Siena Research Institute Director Don Levy said this latest poll should be treated as a snapshot of early voter sentiment, especially in the Democratic primary for governor. The poll has yet to narrow its focus to likely Democratic primary voters.
“I wouldn’t call this a prediction of who is going to win the primary,” said Levy.
Polling for this year’s primary election is also complicated by the unusual Thursday election date. (The voting was moved to avoid commemorations of 9/11 and a Jewish holiday.)
Despite Cuomo’s lead over actual candidates, a plurality of voters told the Siena poll they preferred a generic alternative for governor. Only 44 percent of New Yorkers want to re-elect the governor when given a choice between him and “someone else,” with the latter netting 47 percent.
Among Democratic voters, Greenberg said the results of the “someone else” question closely mirrored the Democratic gubernatorial primary turnout in 2014, when Cuomo racked up 62 percent of the vote and Zephyr Teachout got 34 percent.
The mere existence of polling for the Democratic primary at this point in the campaign season is a sharp contrast from 2014, when Teachout didn't enter the race until the summer. That year Siena didn't publish a poll on the race, and an August poll from Quinnipiac simply asked about Teachout's favorability.
Another sign that the campaigns are in their nascent stages is the relative obscurity of the challengers to Cuomo. Nixon, who is well-known by fans of HBO's “Sex and the City,” is currently a mystery to 45 percent of the general electorate in New York.
It’s even worse for DeFrancisco and Molinaro, who should be prepared to introduce themselves when campaigning across the state, as approximately three-quarters of voters don’t know who they are or have an opinion about them.
