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Spectrum News / Siena College 25th Congressional District Poll:
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Morelle Leads Maxwell by 24 Points, 55-31 Percent
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Maxwell Has 63 Percent of Reps; Morelle Has 81 of Dems; Morelle Leads with Independents by 12 Points; Up Huge in Rochester
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Favorability Ratings: Morelle, 53-18 Percent; Maxwell: 17-12 Percent
Loudonville, NY. Early in the race for the congressional seat long-held by former Representative Louise Slaughter, Democrat Joe Morelle holds a 55-31 percent lead over his Republican opponent, Dr. Jim Maxwell, according to a new Spectrum News/Siena College poll of likely 25th C.D. voters released today. Morelle, Assembly Majority Leader and a longtime Assemblyman, has 53-18 percent favorability rating, compared to 17-12 percent for first-time candidate Maxwell, who is still largely unknown to more than two-thirds of voters.
“In this longtime ‘blue’ district, Democrat Morelle has a comfortable 24-point lead over Republican Maxwell,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “Morelle holds 81 percent of Democrats, picks up nearly one-quarter of Republicans and leads with independents by
12 points. He has support from two-thirds of voters in Rochester, a two-to-one lead in the eastern portion of the district and has a narrow four-point edge in the west. Maxwell trails by six points with men and 38 points with women.
“Morelle is more well known and viewed more favorably by voters in this district that has nearly 60,000 more enrolled Democrats than Republicans. So, it’s not surprising that these voters also support Democratic control of the House of Representatives 55-37 percent,” Greenberg said. “And by a comparable margin, 57-34 percent, voters disapprove of the job that Donald Trump is doing as President.
“In the dog days of August, with 11 weeks still until election day, Morelle is in a strong position to win this open seat and keep it in the hands of the Democrats. That said, 77 days is a long time in the current world of politics that seems to have a new news cycle hourly. However, Maxwell has his work cut out for him to become known and liked, and be able to overcome the Republican enrollment disadvantage,” Greenberg said.
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This Spectrum News/Siena College 25th C.D. survey was conducted August 15-19, 2018 by telephone calls in English to 500 likely 25th C.D. voters. This poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.4 percentage points. Calls were made to a stratified weighted sample of voters from the L-2 Voter list via both land and cell phones. A likely-to-vote probability was computed for each respondent based on their stated likelihood to vote as well as by virtue of the imputation of a turnout probability score based on past voting behavior. This combined probability to vote score was applied as a weight along with a weight that considered party registration, age, region, and gender. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social and cultural research primarily in NYS. SCRI, 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 Steven Greenberg at 518-469-9858. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SCRI/SNY.
