Newsday / Siena College 3rd Congressional District Poll:
Suozzi Lead Over Martins Tightens to Seven Points;
Dem Leads Rep 47-40%, Down from 50-34%
Martins Brings Reps Back Home and Evens Race with Inds
Clinton & Trump Neck-and-Neck; She Previously Led By 9 Points
Loudonville, NY. There’s been a tightening in the race to replace retiring Democratic Representative Steve Israel, as Democrat Tom Suozzi’s lead over Republican Jack Martins has dropped to seven points, 47-40 percent, down from a 50-34 percent Suozzi lead last month, according to a new Newsday/Siena College poll of likely 3rd C.D. voters. Martins’ lead among Republicans increased to 58 points, up from 41 points. Suozzi continues to have an even larger lead, 69 points, with Democrats. Independent voters are virtually evenly divided, 44 percent for Martins and 43 percent for Suozzi, after siding with Suozzi by five points last month.
With 43 percent support, Donald Trump has pulled within a point of Hillary Clinton, supported by 44 percent of likely voters. Clinton had led 47-38 percent last month. In the race for United States Senate, Chuck Schumer increased his already lopsided lead over Wendy Long to 64-28 percent, up from 61-32 percent last month.
“Suozzi’s double digit lead is now single digits, and while a seven-point lead heading into the final days is a strong place to be, in this whacky election year of 2016, Martins has moved into striking distance,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “While Suozzi maintains his huge lead among Democrats, Martins has succeeded in starting to bring Republicans back home. Suozzi’s Republican support fell from 25 percent last month to 15 percent today, and independent voters shifted a little toward Martins, from last month’s five-point Suozzi lead to a razor thin one-point edge for Martins.
“Martins made up ground across the district. He cut Suozzi’s Nassau lead from 20 to 11 points. In Queens, he trails by 14, down from 23, points. Suffolk, where Suozzi had led by eight points, is now tied,” Greenberg said.
“While Suozzi continues to have a 15-point lead with women, down from 21 points last month, Martins has turned an 11-point Suozzi lead with men into a razor thin 43-42 percent Martins edge. Among the quarter of voters without a college degree, Martins turned a four-point deficit into an eight-point lead,” Greenberg said.
“Suozzi continues to be more known to the voters – half of likely voters still don’t know enough about Martins to have an opinion of him – however, they both have positive favorability ratings in the single digits,” Greenberg said. “More voters have seen Suozzi commercials than have seen those of Martins, and fewer than 20 percent of voters think either Suozzi or Martins is waging the more negative campaign.”
Clinton, Trump Virtually Even; Clinton Had Led by 9 Points; Schumer Trounces Long by 36 Points
“Trump closed last month’s nine-point gap with Clinton and the race is now virtually dead even. Clinton had been doing much better with Democrats than Trump was doing with Republicans. Now, however, Trump has moved from 70 percent to 81 percent Republican support, better than Clinton’s 77 percent Democratic support,” Greenberg said. “While Democrats Suozzi and Clinton have lost ground, Democrat Schumer increased his previously huge lead of 29 points to 36 points, including the support of 37 percent of Republicans.
“Tic, toc, tic, toc. While Martins has cut the gap from 16 points to seven points and brought Suozzi under the ‘magic 50 percent mark,’ Suozzi still has a lead as the campaign days dwindle. Thirteen percent of voters still say they are undecided between Suozzi and Martins. Which campaign will do a better job of wooing them? Which campaign will have the stronger field operation to get their voters to the polls? Four weeks ago, we said we’re keeping our eye on this race. It seems we have to watch this one through Tuesday night,” Greenberg said.
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This Newsday/Siena College 3rd C.D. survey was conducted October 30-November 1, 2016 by telephone calls in English to 614 likely 3rd C.D. voters. This poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.0 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 and interest in the upcoming election 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 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. 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 Steven Greenberg at 518-469-9858. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SRI/SNY.
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