New Siena poll has Hochul up 14 points over Blakeman days before election

Less than one week out from Election Day, a new poll from Siena University has Gov. Kathy Hochul leading her Republican opponent, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, by 14 percentage points in what is likely one of the last public polls in the race. And in more good news for the incumbent governor, Hochul scored her highest favorability since taking office, breaking the 50% favorable threshold for the first time. 

In a survey conducted between Oct. 19 and 22 of 807 likely voters with a 4.1 percentage point margin of error, Hochul holds a fairly comfortable 54%-40% lead over Blakeman, with 6% undecided. That’s a major improvement compared to last month, when Siena had the governor with just a 9-point margin over her Republican opponent. It’s also the same 14-point margin predicted by Quinnipiac University last week.

Marist College also released new polling for the end of October. It found Hochul leading likely voters 53%-42%, an 11 percentage-point lead. That's identical to the polling released by the college earlier in October. 

The new Siena poll also has Hochul leading among independents with a thin 51% majority to Blakeman’s 40%. That's a reversal compared to last month when Blakeman had a plurality of support among unaffiliated likely voters, with 44% supporting him and 39% backing Hochul.

“Here’s the bottom line: for Republicans to win statewide, they must win convincingly upstate and in the downstate suburbs to offset the Democratic tsunami that is New York City, and they must win independents by a significant margin to offset Democrats’ two-to-one enrollment advantage,” Siena pollster Steve Greenberg said in a statement. “But with only a week to go, Blakeman and Hochul are running virtually evenly upstate and in the downstate suburbs, while Hochul has an 11-point lead with independents.”

Fifty-one percent of likely voters polled said they view the governor well compared to 45% who view her unfavorably. That’s a change. “We’ve often noted that never once in her five years as governor has Hochul’s favorable rating hit 50% in a state where 48% of voters are her fellow Democrats,” Greenberg said. “We will note that no longer.”

Blakeman, meanwhile, has increased his name recognition. Only 21% of those surveyed said they don’t know him or have no opinion of him, compared to roughly a third who told Siena the same a month ago. Simultaneously, he saw his highest favorability rating yet, with 39% percent of likely voters saying they have a good opinion of him. But he also has record-high unfavorables, with 40% saying they don’t view him well, still leaving him with a net negative approval rating from New Yorkers.