Bernie Narrows Gap; Hillary Still Leads By 10 Points;
Trump Maintains Huge Lead, Kasich 2nd, Cruz 3rd
Sanders Evens Race Upstate, with Men, and with White Voters;
Trump Lead: Double Digits with Men, Women, Every Region/Religion
Loudonville, NY. Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has narrowed the lead against former New York Senator Hillary Clinton among likely Democratic voters, however, she still has a double digit lead 52-42 percent, down from a lead of 55-34 percent on March 7 among registered Democrats. On the Republican side, Donald Trump maintains a huge lead, garnering the support of 50 percent of likely Republican voters, compared to 27 percent for Ohio Governor John Kasich and 17 percent for Texas Senator Ted Cruz, according to a new Siena College poll of likely New York State presidential primary voters released today. In a four-way race in March, Trump led among registered Republicans with 45 percent, followed by Kasich and Marco Rubio at 18 percent and Cruz 11 percent.
Among likely Democratic voters, Sanders has a slightly better favorability rating, 75-20 percent, than does Clinton, at 73-25 percent. On the Republican side, Trump has a 58-38 percent favorability rating among likely Republican voters, compared to 57-31 percent for Kasich and a negative 40-55 percent for Cruz.
“While Clinton continues to hold a double digit lead over Sanders, the Brooklyn-born Sanders has tightened the race in the last month over Clinton, the twice-elected former United States Senator from New York. Sanders has widened his lead among voters under 35 to a whopping 52 points, up from 17 points, while Clinton leads among voters over 55 by 22 points, although that’s down from a 39-point lead with older voters,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “The younger voters are feeling the ‘Bern’ but the question is will they come out and vote in large numbers, as older voters historically do?
“While Clinton maintains a commanding 60-31 percent lead among black voters, and extends her lead among Latino voters to 54-42 percent, Sanders has made it a neck-and-neck race with white voters. Clinton has a narrow 49-46 percent lead, down from 52-35 percent last month,” Greenberg said. “Clinton leads by 18 points with women and Sanders has a tiny two-point lead with men. Clinton leads by 13 points in New York City and 19 points in the downstate suburbs, however, upstate voters give a tiny two-point edge to Sanders.”
“Trump looks like he will cruise to victory in his home state, as Cruz did in Texas and Kasich in Ohio. The real question is will he get a majority of Republican votes or simply a very high plurality? Currently, exactly half of likely Republican voters are with the Donald, while Kasich is in sole possession of second place,” Greenberg said. “Trump has a 19-point lead with women and an even larger 27-point lead with men. He leads by 34 points in New York City, 20 points in the downstate suburbs and 23 points upstate.
“Which candidate don’t Republicans want to see leading their ticket? Cruz, says 40 percent of likely voters, compared to 31 percent who say Trump and 25 percent who say Kasich,” Greenberg said.
“Not surprisingly, Democrats view Trump and Cruz overwhelmingly unfavorably, while they only view Kasich moderately unfavorably. Similarly, nearly nine in ten Republicans view Clinton unfavorably and two-thirds view Sanders unfavorably,” Greenberg said.
Dems Overwhelmingly Think Hillary Next President, As Do One-Third of Republicans
“More than two-thirds of Democratic primary voters, including 48 percent of Sanders supporters, think Clinton is likely to be the next president, compared to only 12 percent who think Sanders will be the next president and 10 percent who think it will be Trump,” Greenberg said. “Among Republican primary voters, 40 percent think Trump will win the election, while 33 percent think it will be Clinton, with other candidates all in single digits.”
This Siena College Poll was conducted April 6-11, 2016 by telephone calls conducted in English to 538 likely Democratic primary voters and 469 likely Republican primary voters. Respondent sampling was initiated by asking for the youngest male in the household. The margin of error is +/- 4.5 percentage points for Democrats and +/- 5.0 percentage points for Republicans, including the design effects resulting from weighting. Sampling was conducted via a stratified multi-frame probability sample of both landline and cell phone telephone numbers from ASDE Survey Sampler, Inc. and Survey Sampling International and augmented by sample drawn from historic voters supplied by Prime New York. Republicans and Democrats were independently weighted by age, region and gender to reflect known registration patterns and historic voter turnout. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social and cultural research primarily in NYS. SRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information, call Steve Greenberg at (518) 469-9858. For survey crosstabs: www.Siena.edu/SRI/SNY.
