Syracuse.com / Spectrum News / Siena College Syracuse Mayoral Poll:
Democrat Perez Williams (35%) & Ben Walsh, Independence Candidate (28%) Lead Lavine (9%), Nicoletti (9%), Hawkins (5%)
Perez Williams Leads Big with Democrats; Walsh Leads Lavine by
7 Points with Republicans; Walsh Leads Independents by 28 Points
Walsh & Perez Williams Have Strong Favorability Ratings;
Lavine Unknown to More than Half of Voters
Democrats Like Direction of Syracuse; Republicans & Independents
Strongly Say City Is Headed in Wrong Direction; Majority View Minor Favorably
Loudonville, NY. With a month of campaigning left, Democrat Juanita Perez Williams has the support of 35 percent of likely Syracuse mayoral voters, followed by Independence Party candidate Ben Walsh with 28 percent, Republican Laura Lavine and Joe Nicoletti, the candidate on the Working Families Party line, both with nine percent, and Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins with five percent, according to a new Syracuse.com/Spectrum News/Siena College Poll of likely Syracuse mayoral voters released today.
“This is a classic race to the finish with two candidates way outpacing the field. Perez Williams has a seven-point lead at the halfway point between her success in the Democratic primary and election day. But what really makes this race intriguing is that the candidate in second place is not the Republican, but rather the Independence Party candidate, Ben Walsh, son of the former Republican Representative,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “While Perez Williams has a commanding lead among Democrats, Walsh has a lead among independent voters that is nearly as wide, and he leads with Republicans over Lavine by seven points.”
Syracuse.com/Spectrum News/Siena College Syracuse Mayoral Poll – October 10, 2017 – Page 2
“Both Walsh and Perez Williams are viewed favorably by more than half of Syracuse voters, as is outgoing Mayor Minor, however, Lavine in unknown to more than half of all voters and nearly half of Republicans,” Greenberg said. “While Perez Williams is viewed favorably by wide margins of Democrats and independents, Walsh is viewed favorably by wide margins of Democrats, independents and Republicans.
“Supporters of Perez Williams are far more likely to think Syracuse is on the right track and have strongly positive views of Minor. Walsh voters are more likely to think Syracuse is headed in the wrong direction and not likely to miss Minor’s departure as mayor,” Greenberg said. “Walsh and Perez Williams voters agree that jobs and the economy are the most important issue for the new mayor work on first, however, Perez Williams supporters think poverty is a close second, while Walsh supporters list poverty, crime and school performance as tied for second, far behind jobs.
“In what is likely to be a low turnout election, with a Republican candidate not leading among voters of her own party and an Independence Party candidate nipping at the heels of the Democrat, this figures to be close all the way. It will be interesting to see if a minor party candidate, without significant organizational support, can generate a strong enough get-out-the-vote operation to catch and beat a Democratic candidate who was not originally the choice of her party’s establishment,” Greenberg said.
“With four weeks to go, this looks like it’s going to be a hot race to watch and Siena College will certainly take another look as the election nears,” Greenberg said.
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This Syracuse.com/Spectrum News/Siena College Syracuse Mayoral survey was conducted October 3-5, 2017 by landline and cell telephone calls conducted in English to 571 likely mayoral voters. Calls were made to a sample of voters from the L-2 Voter list via both land and cell phones, supplemented with additional cell phone sample from Survey Sampling International. A likely-to-vote probability was computed for each respondent based on both their selected likelihood to vote as well as by virtue of the imputation of a turnout probability score based on past voting behavior applied to their specific voting history. This probability to vote was applied as a weight subsequent to a weight that considered age, gender and party registration. This poll has a margin of error of + 4.6 percentage points including the design effects resulting from weighting. 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, please call Don Levy at 518-783-2901. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SCRI/SNY.
Syracuse Mayor October 2017 Press Release
