The first, serious Cuomo/Nixon polling is out, and...

We’ve been keeping an eye on the New York Governor’s race (as well as the corruption trials encircling both Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio) for obvious reasons. Both men fancy themselves possible presidential contenders in 2020 and the Empire State is in the midst of some serious political turmoil. As far as another term for Cuomo, his life became more complicated when Sex and the City alumnus Cynthia Nixon threw her designer hat into the ring.

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I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of flack on social media for expressing my continued doubts about how viable of a candidate Nixon actually is and whether or not Cuomo was really in any trouble. Many disagreed with me, obviously, including some at CNN who said the race was shaping up to be a “blockbuster.” One observer at the NY Post described it as Cuomo being in the fight of his life. Was I reading this thing entirely wrong, despite having been born and raised in New York?

I’ve been saying since the beginning that we’d need to wait until we got some solid, reputable polling on this race before we could begin drawing conclusions. The only previous poll, taken in January, was put out while a Nixon run was still mostly just a rumor. Now Quinnipiac has served up some solid numbers taken well after New Yorkers had found out about her candidacy and had a chance to consider it. Cuomo, as it turns out, still doesn’t have a lot to worry about. (Click on image for full size graphic)

There are a couple of caveats to note here. First of all, this isn’t a poll of all of New York State. It was just taken in the five boroughs of New York City. For what it’s worth, Nixon does predictably better in Manhattan and Staten Island than she does in the Bronx. But looking at previous Democratic primaries in New York, upstate doesn’t traditionally vary all that much from the results in the city. And as I noted before, if anything, Cynthia Nixon will struggle even more with the more rural, upstate voters than she does in her television home of Manhattan.

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With all that in mind, those are some dismal numbers for the upstart challenger. Among Democrats (the only ones who can vote in our closed primaries) Cuomo is winning 64-21. And this isn’t a name recognition issue where an unknown challenger might do better later in the race once people get to know them. There are not many undecided voters out there.

Looking for better news in the demographic pigeonholes doesn’t work much better for Nixon either. Amazingly, Nixon actually does worse with Democratic women (20%) than she does with men (25%). She does worse with black voters than whites (though she does the best with Hispanics at 26%). She does best with the youngest voters, ages 18-34, ringing up 34% support, but for all voters over the age of 50 she can’t make it out of the teens.

In other words, she’s trying to play in a Democratic Party race where the politics of gender, race and every other societal division are their bread and butter. But she’s not finding a “home” with any of their core constituencies except possibly in the youth vote. And even there Cuomo is still pulling in a majority. Yes, it’s still a long way to go before we reach the primary on June 26th, but what game-changing event could shift that playing field that much between now and then? Everyone already knows about the corruption trials swirling around Cuomo’s associates and, at least among Democrats, they don’t seem to care. Yes, the subways in the city are a mess, but they have been for years. Maybe if Nixon has hired a PR team capable of putting out some spectacularly effective ads she might start clawing back some ground, but I honestly just don’t see it happening.

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