Polls: Gillibrand The Stoppable?

Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY)
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Two new public polls of the New York special election for Senate suggest that the unstoppable political force that is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) may have finally hit a wall in Republican nominee Joe DioGuardi.

A third respected public poll shows that Gillibrand remains the T-1000 of New York politics. That’s probably a huge relief for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who was banking on holding this seat, and was last seen calling Gillibrand the “hottest member” of the world’s greatest deliberative body.

The numbers: A Quinnipiac poll from Sept. 20 showed Gillibrand ahead by just six, leading DioGuardi 48-42. That was quickly followed up by today’s shocking SurveyUSA poll, which showed Gillibrand leading by just one. The last Quinnipiac poll of the race, from late August, showed Gillibrand up 43-28. This is the first SurveyUSA poll of the contest.

If these nail-biting numbers reflect the true state of the race to fill the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton at the beginning of last year, Democrats should start panicking. No one expects Gillibrand to lose and if she did it would be a seriously epic blow to both egos and the “Democrats have secured their Senate majority” narrative that followed the Delaware Republican primary for Senate you may have heard a little about.

Before Democrats could really get their freak-out on, however, Siena College swooped in to rescue Gillibrand — for now anyway. The new poll from the college shows Gillibrand leading 57-31. The previous Siena poll, from mid-August, showed Gillibrand up 54-29.

There’s just one problem.

Both the Q poll and the astounding SurveyUSA poll were conducted among likely voters. The Siena poll is a survey of registered voters. And, as we’ve seen all year, likely voters are more Republican this time around than they usually are.

In short, it’s entirely possible that the voters who are sure they’re going to turn out in November are dramatically more pro-DioGuardi than the rest of the state electorate. That could be a problem for Gillibrand, just like it’s a problem for each and every Democrat on the ballot this year. But the the TPM Poll Average still shows the Democrat leading 49.5-36.3 despite the new gap-closing numbers.

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