| Gillibrand is still not that well-known, a result of her having been appointed and never run statewide before.
But the more people get to know her, in part due to the Harold Ford mini-campaign of earlier this year, but mostly due to her hard work around the state, the more they like her.
Siena asked whether respondents would vote for her or prefer someone else -- her elect number of 36 may seem low, but its's up dramatically from the 27 of a month ago. And the someone else number dropped from 40 to 38.
But that's generic. In the real world, Siena polled Gillibrand against three possible Republican opponents, and the results showed similar gains.
Against Bruce Blakeman, Siena found Gillibrand leading 51-24, up from 46-26 last month.
Against Joe DioGuardi, Gillibrand now leads 51-25, up from 46-27 in April.
Against David Malpass, Gillibrand does even better, leading 53-22, up from 46-24 last month.
Siena found DioGuardi ahead of the other two (perhaps because of his American Idol judge daughter), but all of them are evidently unknown by a majority of Republican voters -- the don't know/no opinion number for the potential GOP primary was 74.
NY is a solidly Democratic state, and will elect a solid Democrat -- Kirsten Gillibrand -- as its junior Senator in November.
Even the teabaggers recognize this, and have been nowhere near as enthusiastic about this race as they are about Congressional and state legislative races.
A popular Gillibrand, atop the ticket with even-more-popular Sen. Chuck Schumer (Siena favorability of 64) and Andrew Cuomo (Siena favorability of 67), will help lots of down-ticket Democrats in an important election year.
And that's a good thing. |
