Poll: Cuomo Only Leads Paladino by 6
Politico reports:
Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Cuomo, who had led the GOP field by thirty points for most of the year, is now leading Republican rival Carl Paladino by just six points among likely voters, an astonishing new Quinnipiac University poll shows.
Among the most surprising numbers in the survey is that 49 percent of independents prefer Paladino, compared to 43 percent for Cuomo, an inverse of the topline number.
It's the first head-to-head of the general election, and Q's first likely-voter survey.The margin of error is 3.6 percent, and Rick Lazio, who is currently the Conservative Party nominee but whose intentions are unclear, was not included in the survey.
Nonetheless, the numbers show that Cuomo is almost certainly going to have to end his "Rose Garden" strategy and start attacking and defining Paladino.
“Attorney General Andrew Cuomo might be a victim of his own excess. Politicians and polls have depicted him so relentlessly as a sure thing that he might be a victim of the ‘throw the bums out’ attitude that hits incumbents in this angry year,” said Quinnipiac's Maurice Carroll.
Palaino's negatives are almost at the same place of Cuomo's - 31 percent for Paladino, 34 percent for Cuomo - but the GOP nominee remains largely undefined, with 31 percent unable to form an opinion about him.
And Cuomo's favorability is now just at 51 percent.
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