Hochul builds 14-Point lead over Blakeman: Did Trump's endorsement backfire?

Robert Moses, Steve Greenberg with Sienna. We have this new poll out, Steve. Your poll shows Governor Kathy Hochul up by 14 points. Talk to us a little bit about the poll, what you guys found in here. Sure. Well, where we are barely a week out from Election Day is that Kathy Hochul has the support of 54 percent of likely New York state voters. Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, has the support of 40 percent. Last month in the Siena poll, we had Hochul up 50 to 41 percent or a nine point lead. She's picked up three points. He's dropped a point. So what was a nine point lead is now a 14 point lead. Steve, I'm curious, do you think that Bruce Blakeman's embrace of President Trump has hurt him? Do you think the numbers bear that out? I mean, we know that his popularity has been sinking of late, and it seems like Blakeman has at times took pains to distance himself from President Trump. Do you think his embrace of the president and the president's embrace of him has been harmful? Absolutely. Look, Donald Trump has never been popular in his home state of New York, not before he was president, not during either term, not in between, certainly not now. But we asked voters directly, do you think Donald Trump's endorsement of Bruce Blakeman is a positive or a negative for the Blakeman campaign? And by a 48 to 28% margin, voters think that Trump's endorsement of Blakeman is a negative for his campaign. And, Steve, as we look at this, we heard from the Blakeman campaign. I don't know if you saw what they said. They put out a statement where they said that there's a 21-point difference in your poll when it comes to independents and one that recently came out from Marist, where your poll shows Hochul up by 11 with independents, where a Marist poll shows that there is one where Blakeman is up by 10 points. What did you guys find in your poll and any reaction to what the Blakeman campaign is saying? Well, candidates who don't like polls often attack the poll and the pollster. So no great surprise there. I mean, I think what's really worth noting is that we have the race right now at 54 to 40 percent, a 14 point lead for Hochul. So Marist, which came out earlier this morning, and they are certainly a quality pollster, has the race at 53 to 42. So off by a point on what Hochul is polling, off by two points on Blakeman, virtually the same. I have not gone into their crosstabs. I haven't looked at their demographic breakdowns. But I am confident that, you know, with with Siena saying 14 points, Marist saying 11 points, this is definitely a double digit race right now with Hochul in the lead. All right. And you know what? Just a minute or two ago, the governor was asked about your poll. I just want to play that soundbite. We were just able to turn it around very quickly. So let's go ahead and take a listen, Steve, and then maybe we'll get any reaction. I know Robert wants to ask you another question, too. Someone asked me if I'm flying to the game. I was like, I'm not leaving the state right now to fly to an out-of-state game, but I'll be at the Bills bar in Astoria probably Sunday. Any other topics that are less serious than the Buffalo Bills? I'll go after Marcia. that he's going to be the best leader of the state. I wonder if you could react to the polls and also to his charges. And then I have a second question. That's a novel approach to how you read polls, since we've had polls in this country since about 1822, and I never heard them being defined as something that's intended to suppress people getting out to vote. So that's a new one. That's a new one. So I will dismiss that outrageous claim, And, you know, the polling organizations can defend their techniques and et cetera. So, listen, everybody gets caught up in the horse race aspects of it. But I want to get the message out clearly that there are still days to go. Early voting is showing exciting, exciting news that there is record historic number of people turning out all over the state. I was just in Buffalo and Rochester and Syracuse and Albany. I mean, in Albany tonight, and people are so energized to get out and vote. And what I mean is this is all about not just the top of the ticket, but everybody down ballot. And we have such. And so we're hearing her. I mean, we don't want to play the whole thing because it could go on and on and on. But it sounds like she is dismissing the Blakeman side of it, but also excited about some of the early voting numbers. I know, Robert, you've seen positive signs in those early early numbers, at least in terms of turnout. Yeah. I mean, here in the city, Stephen, I know you you've seen this, too. But something like almost 300,000 people have voted through the first four days of early voting across the five boroughs. Four years ago, that number was something like 171,000. So the turnout is hugely up four years from the 2022 race. I'm curious, and this is a little far afield of your poll, perhaps, but do you think the poll foreshadows what could be a blue wave in a week? Or do you think that Democratic expectations are so high that maybe Democrats won't be able to meet those expectations? I'm curious where you fall on that. Well, if we're talking about New York, I mean, I don't see a particularly large blue wave. What we have is we have the governor up by 14 points. We have Attorney General James up over her Republican challenger by 15 points. We have the generic congressional ballot where we ask voters, if the vote today, would you vote for a Democrat or Republican for Congress? And Democrats have a 15 point lead there. When you think about New York, it's a state where 48% of the enrolled voters are Democrats, only 23% of the enrolled voters are Republicans. They're actually more independents in New York than there are Republicans. So the fact that we see races in the low to mid double digits is not surprising for a state like New York. And if I could just address what County Executive Blakeman's campaign said, look, So I can only tell you that we put our polls out there publicly. You have our entire poll in front of you. You have all the, you have the wording of the question and you have the results. And next Tuesday, you're going to look at the actual results and you're going to say, gee, Hochul won by 25. Siena got it wrong. Or Blakeman won by three. Siena got it wrong. Or you're going to be able to say, hey, Hochul won by 15 points. Looks like Sienna nailed it. We're out there. The only incentive we have is to get it right. Our incentive is not to bolster the Republican, not to bolster the Democrat, not to affect turnout in any way. Our only objective is to get it right because a week from now, you're going to look at the results. You're going to look at the last Siena, Marist, Quinnipiac, whoever's poll, and you're going to say they got it right, they got it wrong. And we want to get it right. Stephen Greenberg, Siena pollster, thank you very much for your time this morning. I know we kind of navigated a bunch of different topics there and do appreciate your reaction to that. Obviously, anybody. Make sure everybody gets out and vote. Everybody get out and vote. The most important poll there is. And check out the Siena poll if you want to. Stephen, thank you very much.