What the polls say about the Trump factor in New York races

As we mentioned on Monday, when compiling our assessment of the state Senate races we factored in Donald Trump’s place at the top of the ticket. We were operating mostly on anecdotal evidence from Albany insiders, consultants, lobbyists – the types of people who are following this really closely because it will impact their jobs.

Generally, the collective sense was that Trump versus Clinton at the top of the ticket will hurt Republicans in many key races on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley. The further away from New York City you get, the less of a liability Trump will be.

It seems our reporting was pretty spot on. Take a look at the crosstabs from this recent Siena Research Institute Poll. (Scroll down to the bottom of page two. You are looking for Q.41, and then region.) One of the great things about the Siena poll is that the responses are divided by region into New York City, the suburbs (Long Island and Westchester, Orange, Rockland and Putnam counties) and Upstate (the other 51 counties). So, while by a 2 to 1 margin voters say Trump is a bigger drag on Republican state Senate candidates than Hillary Clinton statewide, we can look at the suburbs and upstate, where the divide is not quite as big.

In the suburbs, 36 percent of voters said Trump will help Republicans maintain control of the state Senate, while 56 percent said he will not. Upstate, the numbers were virtually the same.

When asked about Clinton, 62 percent in the suburbs say she will help Democrats and 33 percent say she will not. Upstate, it was 57 percent to 36 percent, respectively.

It’s also important to note that this poll is gauging people’s perceptions of the candidates’ impact on the race, and not whether they are less or more likely to vote for a specific state Senate candidate, or vote at all, because of the presidential candidates. There have been countless media stories about Trump dragging down tickets nationally. Far less media coverage has been dedicated to whether there is any enthusiasm gap among Democrats who don’t want to vote for Clinton, and if there is a gap, whether it could drive down turnout in these areas where control of the state senate will be decided.

We received some feedback from our Insiders that also reflected this general sense that Trump is a bigger drag on the ticket, though responses were mixed between whether Republicans, Democrats or some union with the IDC would be in control of the chamber after the November elections.

For now, we are going to stick by our assessment that there are four tossup races and eight that lean Republican, but could quickly become tossups if we get more data about the Trump trend in specific districts.

Hopefully Siena will be in the field in the state Senate races soon.