New York Democrats are about to following another Clinton off the cliff, you would think they could find one competent person to run for senate who is actually a native New Yorker, but I guess queen worship can go pretty far.
Article...RICK BLOWS PAST HILL
By ROBERT HARDT Jr.
RICK LAZIO
nypostonline.com
Turning from a political unknown into a front-runner in two months, Long Island Rep. Rick Lazio has pulled ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton by 7 points in the Senate race, a stunning new Post poll shows.
Lazio's advantage - 49.6 percent to Clinton's 42 percent - is technically slightly within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, meaning Lazio could be up by as many as 15 points or as low as a tie with the first lady.
But it shows a significant voter shift to the Suffolk County legislator.
The survey of 605 likely voters, conducted by Zogby International on Thursday and Friday, found Lazio doing better than in any other poll conducted since he entered the campaign on May 20 after Mayor Giuliani suddenly dropped out.
"The race has really become all about her," said pollster John Zogby.
"When Giuliani was running, the vote was a little bit about him, but now that he's gone, it's more or less a statewide vote on Hillary," he said.
Lazio, a Republican, now has commanding leads upstate (56.4 percent to 35.9 percent) and in New York City's suburbs (58.6 percent to 32.9 percent) while Clinton's stronghold remains the heavily Democratic five boroughs (60.6 percent to 30.1 percent).
"She's clearly been spending a lot of time upstate and is doing well in the upstate cities but the anti-Hillary vote is very, very powerful in the rest of the region," Zogby said.
"In addition, we are now seeing Lazio's numbers in the suburbs pick up where Giuliani's left off, which is a real hurdle for Hillary," he said.
Zogby said that Clinton's biggest problem is that a bedrock 38.2 percent of those polled have a "very unfavorable" opinion of her.
"Those are people who really aren't going to change their minds about a candidate," he said.
But 32.2 percent have a "very favorable" opinion of the first lady.
Factoring in people who have "somewhat favorable" and "somewhat unfavorable" opinions, Clinton's favorables lead slightly, 49.6 percent to 47.8 percent.
Lazio's "very unfavorable" rating is just 12.7 percent while his "very favorable" rating is 27.4 percent.
Factoring in the "somewhats," more people have a favorable opinion of the six-term congressman, 56.3 percent, to 29.6 percent unfavorable.
About 13 percent of those polled said they aren't yet familiar enough with Lazio to have an opinion about him - voters who will undoubtedly be targeted by the Clinton campaign.
Factoring in Green Party candidate Al Lewis and Independence Party candidate Jeff Graham, Lazio's lead over Clinton shrinks, 45.9 percent to 41.1 percent. |
