| In short, Gillibrand is up somewhere in the mid-teens -- good, but not great.
The SUSA poll is an obvious outlier, and the Quinnipiac poll somewhat less so.
Gillibrand has generally struggled in the polls, because of her low name recognition, especially in the NYC metro area. Her favorability and name recognition have steadily grown over the 20 months she's been a Senator.
Pre-primary polls had shown her with a 20-plus point lead over DioGuardi and the other two Republican Senate candidates. DioGuardi presumably got a boost from lots of free media surrounding his primary win.
DioGuardi won in part because he was able to lend his campaign $1.2 million, most of which is gone. Gillibrand has more than $4 million cash on hand.
Gillibrand has a solid progressive voting record in the Senate, and has taken leadership roles on issues like DADT, children's nutrition and health, infrastructure investments, and openness and transparency.
Here's what a reporter at the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (upstate, but a couple three hours from Gillibrand former Congressional District) wrote after his first in-person encounter with Gillibrand, at an editorial board meeting last month:
I did not expect to see such a warm, focused and extremely well-prepared person willing to answer every single question honestly and completely. Her command of the issues was remarkable, as was her common-sense approach to act on them.
She is one of the very few politicians I have come across who had a good grasp of the various angles of every issue, and her reasons for supporting or opposing it. There was a candidness rarely seen in politics.
The reporter then listed 27 issues that Gillibrand took a "logical and sensible approach" to -- in one editorial board meeting.
Gillibrand is smart, incredibly hard-working, and progressive. New York voters get their first chance to vote for her in November (with a second to follow in 2012), and a solid majority will recognize that she is an excellent Senator. |
