bronx

Two independent polls
released this week show the race for governor of New York is tightening with
just a few weeks before Election Day.

Steven Greenberg, a
pollster for Siena College in Loudonville, NY, joined Jonathan Gordon to give
more incite into the minds of voters before Nov. 8. 

Steven Greenberg, a pollster for Siena College in Loudonville, NY, joined Jonathan Gordon to give more incite into the minds of voters before Nov. 8.

Bronx

BX | Weather

BXFORECAST

And storm watch team. Meteorologist, Alex Calamia, Alex. If folks are going out and about today for any of those winter activities, it looks like the rain is going to stop at some point. Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, but it might not be until after the day ends in a sense because sun sets before 430 now and I don't really see us getting a big break from the rain until the evening time. This is what it looks like. Right now in midtown, it's a light rain. You might actually be able to head outside without even using the umbrella. I personally have a rain jacket because I think that's kind of your best bet. This evening, we still have some sprinkles, but we are dry for a work week. I mean, I don't want to talk about the work week on a Sunday morning, but if you're looking for something positive, I've got that for you in the 10 day. Here's 9 a.m. soaker, here's lunch time, still dealing with at least light showers. You see the green is a lighter shade here so it's not as widespread. It's not as heavy of a rain. But we still have some rain at four o'clock again. It's not absolutely pouring, but it's light mist, gloomy, kind of just, you know, not good weather, but it's not going to be anything really significant as far as rainfall totals. They're very limited. So we're maybe looking at half of an inch of rain when it's all said and done. Monday morning. Lots of sunshine. Beautiful start to the day and then the clouds push in Monday afternoon and we'll have cooler temperatures. By Tuesday. We're in the upper forties now. We're in the low fifties for highs today. Not a big jump in temperature. East breeze coming in. It feels really chilly tonight. Not bad. We're in the forties again. We do have sunshine by Monday morning. So a good feel as you're getting, the kids ready for school are heading out to work. We do hit mid ff on Monday and again, no rain after today for the whole work week. So that's something to be happy about, but it will get cold Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday too, by the way, will feel like it is in the thirties.

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Weather

Brooklyn

BK | Weather

Hudson Valley

HV | Weather

HVFORECAST

Day, we see the lights blinking there on the bridge. Is this gonna stick around? Yeah, unfortunately, we are looking for the foggy and cloudiness to stick around at least until we get to the early parts of tonight. But the good news is the rain in itself, folks is going to start to dissipate as we get closer towards the dinner time hours. So this is what we got going on for us on our surface man picking up where we left off again, the low pressure system which has just been funneling plenty of shower activity throughout the course of the day. Luckily, this our activity in itself though has been mainly light. And now as we get into the rest of this evening, we are looking for that rain to start to pretty much clear up. But towards Yonkers in areas like Westchester and Rockland County, some spots could see some isolated showers and even parts of the northern areas of Ulster and Duchess County. Again, you might see a couple of straight showers, but you're not necessarily gonna need that umbrella or Reindeer getting into the rest of this evening if you're going to be out Now, we've seen close to about three quarters of an inch of rainfall for parts of Westchester County. But many of us saw less than about a half of an inch from this latest event. Now, once the rain is done though, once we get to tonight, we are expecting fog to take over once again, which is gonna be lowering visibility heading into our Monday. So just be mindful that we are looking for areas of fog to start off for Monday. But until then we are looking at cloudy for the rest of this evening and steady temperatures into the forties over towards the uh New Rochelle area. So looking at our future cast, what we got again going into tonight's might see a couple of stray showers, northern parts of parts of Ulster County might even get a bit of some heavier rainfall. But again, once we get closer to around 10 o'clock, things are looking to dry out for us heading into Monday, we are looking for more sunshine. Some clouds will build once we get into our Monday afternoon as temperatures will be near 50 degrees as we roll into around three o'clock. Otherwise not expecting a whole lot more in terms of rain, but be prepared for breezy and mild for Monday. But the forties will return once again a bit on a chillier end from Tuesday into much of next week, near 40 in the upper thirties. By the time we get to Hanukkah and then we will warm back up next weekend. All right, Julian, thank you for that weather.

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Westchester

WC | Weather

Article 309401 Thumbnail

Power & Politics Full Show: Midterm elections – Siena College pollster breaks down the races

wchvppbd1023

thanks for joining me. I'm Jonathan Gordon and you're watching power and politics on news 12 to independent polls released this week, show the race for governor of new york is tightening just a few weeks to go before Election Day. And these results are giving republicans some renewed energy as we count down to november 8th. Today, we're speaking with Stephen Greenberg, a pollster for Sienna College, It's about five miles from the state capital there in Albany. The Sienna poll surveyed almost 800 registered voters. Stephen as always, thanks so much for joining me. My pleasure to be with you. I want to talk about, you know, right at the top with this governor's race. And it shows that Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin is closing in on incumbent democrat Kathy hold just a few weeks, few weeks left before the midterm election, before we get into the numbers. What does this tell you specifically about the state of the race? Well, what it tells us is that voters are starting to pay attention to the campaigns, they're getting bombarded with phone calls and door knocks and mail and tv and online commercials. Uh and voters are paying attention and they're focusing in on the issues that matter to them and they're trying to decide which of these candidates for the various offices do. I think we'll do a better job for me and my family. And so, you know, there is generally a natural tightening as races move closer to election day and more voters are focused and I think that's what we're seeing here. You know, local still leads Elden by about 11 points, according to the poll, 50 to 41% but that is a six point drop from where it was three weeks ago. Of course it is. As you mentioned, tightening, what do you make of that adjustment? Well, what we saw is that Zeldin closed the gap by six points. He had a 17 point lead back in september now down to an 11 point lead. Where did that happen? Uh It happened with republicans. He had been doing doing well with republicans. He had been leading 77 to 17% with republicans, but now he leads 81 to 12. Now, it's important for him to solidify his republican base in terms of independent voters, he increased a narrow lead. He led by three points with independence back in september now leads by nine points, 49 to 40. That's both good news and bad news for Zeldin. The good news is he leads among independents by by nine points. The bad news is he only leads by nine points because we have to take a quick step back to note that new york is a very blue state hasn't elected a Republican statewide since George. Pataki won his third term as governor back in 2002, 20 years ago, 50% of the enrolled voters in the state are democrats, 22% of the enrolled voters, less than half um of that, 50% are Republican and in fact there are more independence, 23% of enrolled voters than there are republicans in new york. So for a Republican to win statewide, gotta be doing better with independents. The other factor for Zeldin is he's got to do a better job of cutting into hoc als lead with democrats. Right now. Ho Kal is carrying 84% of democrats. Only 10% of democrats say they're with Zelda in a state where half the voters are registered democrats, a Republican has to do better with democrats. The other good point for Zeldin over the last three weeks, from our late september poll to our mid october poll is that he flipped the downstate suburbs. Previously, he had been trailing in the downstate suburbs by five points. Now he's leading in the downstate suburbs by four points. And that took me right into the next question. As it pertains to a lot of voters here. We know that the geography of the state is critical. We know the downstate in the suburbs play a huge role in who wins the statewide races. Is that a significant change? That flip? Yeah, no question, look, uh again, any Democrat is gonna win big in New York City, and so for Republican to win statewide, what they have to do is try and narrow that gap a little bit in New York City when George Pataki won his three races for governor as a Republican in New York, he got about 29-31% of the vote Out of New York City in his three elections. And that's what a Republican has to do is get about 30% out of New York City. But Republican to win statewide also has to do better in the suburbs than winning by just four points. And right now we have Zeldin leading upstate, but again by only four points. And that's not enough to offset the big deficit coming out of New York City that a Republican faces. And I'm sure the governor's connection of course, to Western new york plays some type of role in that, you know, her favorability is still up four points. What trends have you noticed overall? Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting that right now, 45% of voters have a favorable view of local, 41%. An unfavorable view. Not great, but as you point out, four points on the positive side for Zeldin, it's 37 favorable 41% unfavorable. So four points On the negative side, the good news for Zeldin is that now, only 21% of New Yorkers have either never heard of him or don't know enough about him to have an opinion three weeks earlier, that was 36%. So as I said earlier, the campaigns are, are having an effect, voters are paying more attention. But what's really in interesting about Cathy Hackl is sienna pulled on her in september 2021 a year ago, a little over a year ago. She had been governor at that point for one month. And at that 10.41% of new Yorkers viewed her favorably every month. Since then one and 47%. She hasn't had a chance yet or the ability yet to connect in a way with voters uh to get that favorability rating above 50%. So she hovers in positive territory, but not by a lot. And of course, we do see in both Zeldin and locals favorability ratings, huge partisan divides, democrats really like local, really dislike Zell republicans flipped that they really like Zeldin, They really dislike ho Kal independent voters um slightly negative to local, 45% view her unfavorably 40% viewer favorably for Zeldin flipped that slightly favorable 41% of independents view Zeldin favorably compared to 37% who view him unfavorably. I want to look at a few other races as well. Of course, there are some other big races, um with us senator, incumbent democrat chuck schumer lead Republican joe opinion. 57 37 last month it was 55 36. Is there enough there to believe the opinion can upset the upset the Senate majority leader? Or is this one probably not gonna be close. This one doesn't appear to be close as senator schumer seeks 1/5 term to the United States Senate. Uh look, he had a 19 point lead back in september he now has a 20 point lead. There's been no movement. Part of that is that joe pinion, like the other Republican candidates who are challenging incumbent democrats for attorney general and for Controller joe opinion is unknown to 90% of the voters of the state. So the support he's getting is simply because he's on that republican line. Um and so given a state that has more than twice as many democrats as republicans, I don't think it's particularly surprising that we see Senator Schumer with a large lead. Similarly in the Controller's race. Um we see a large 24 point lead for Tom Dinapoli, the incumbent democrat over paul Rodriguez, his Republican challenger, a little bit closer as the race for attorney general, where uh the incumbent democrat Leticia James leads her Republican opponent, Michael Henry, by 11 points. The same as local lead. Zelda. So four statewide races. We see the democrats leading in all of them, but in two of them, the democrats have an 11 point lead. In two of them, the democrats have a 20 plus point lead. What's the difference? Independent voters? We talked about them with Zeldin Zeldin, the Republican leads among independents by nine points. Michael Henry, the Republican running for attorney general leads. Leticia James among independents by 10 points, but chuck schumer, the democrat running for re election leads among independents by eight points. And Tom Dinapoli. The democrat Running for incumbents as controller leads among independents by 12 points. So there's a sizeable percentage of independent voters who are ticket flippers. I'll take, you know, candidate here from column a and a candidate here from column b. Um and that's why you see the difference uh in these four statewide races, largely based on independent voters. Another question you asked in this poll was whether they prefer to see democrats or republicans hold on to control of the house, we know control of the house is going to be critical and some of that is going to run right through, particularly here in the Hudson Valley and new york voters that you spoke with say they do prefer democrats, maybe unsurprisingly. But what are those latest numbers there? And again, how to independent voters? Sure. Well, right now, 54% of New Yorkers say they'd like to see the Democrats in control after the election, 41% like to see Republicans in control. Not surprisingly, 87% of Democrats say they want to see their party in control. Similarly, 85% of republic Can say they want to see their party in control, independence, say mm, 46% of independents say Democrats, of independents say Republicans, so they are divided down the middle. Um but it's interesting to note three weeks earlier, the Democratic lead was two points higher. It was 54, nine back in september now, 54 41 a 13 point lead for the democrats. Uh, and remember uh in terms of enrollment, democrats have a 23 point edge over the republicans. But it's also important to note that this is a statewide number and we elect members of Congress in 26 separate districts in new york. So this really doesn't give us a good Handle on how voters in the 17th or the 18th congressional districts may feel about this Democrat Republican, uh, who should control Congress. Thanks so much. We do have to take a quick break and we will be coming right back, talk about the most important issues to voters, get a check on how they view former President Donald Trump and more. We'll be right back. Welcome back to power and politics. I'm talking about the latest polling numbers with Sienna College pollster steven, Greenberg Stephen thinks of course for being here. And you know, how do the voters view the direction the state is heading right now? And how is that changed over the last several months? Sure, Well, right now, only 39% of new york voters think the state is headed in the US On the right track. A majority, 52% think we're headed in the wrong direction. Um, back three weeks earlier, it was a little bit better, but not great, 41% right track 47% uh, wrong direction. If we go back to the start of the year, it was almost break even 41% right track 45% wrong direction. It's been negative most of the year. On the good news side, it's not as negative as how people feel about the country, the direction of the country right now, only 30% of voters think the country is on the right track. Uh 61% think we're headed in the uh, in the wrong direction. Um what's interesting, particularly when we look at new york state huge partisan divide, 61% of democrats think new york state is on the right track, 87% of republicans think the state is headed in the wrong direction And independence look a little bit more like Republicans on this question by a 56-38% margin. Independents think the state is headed in the wrong direction and we talk about the direction of the state and the country. Several polls have shown just what really matters to voters economy, inflation, abortion. Do you think any of these issues are giving one party an advantage over the other? Well, certainly, so each of these issues tends to benefit one side or the other. And in this most recent sienna paul, we didn't ask any issue questions we had asked a few weeks before and I've seen the other public polling and and it's clear that economic issues the economy, inflation, how much I'm paying for a gallon of gas, the job situation that's top of mind for the majority of voters. But issues like crime are important for a lot of voters. Issues like abortion are important for a lot of voters. Issues like threats to democracy is an important issue for a lot of voters. And what we know is that the candidates want to hammer on those issues. That will help them the most, not necessarily with all voters, but with the voters they're going after both campaigns right now are trying to get those few undecided voters that are still left and they're trying to peel off some weaker supporters of their opponents. So the whole campaign is trying to get we Zelden opponents and the Zeldin campaign trying to get some of those weaker local uh supporters right now. And so what the campaigns do is they use their polling to try and figure out what issues matter, not to the overall electorate, but to that segment of voters that they're going after. So if you see the local campaign running commercials about abortion there too, trying to get the voters they think are still reachable and persuade their supporters to come out on election Day. Likewise, you see these elders campaign talking about crime or or the cost of of goods and groceries, uh they're appealing to their voters that they think they can win over and convince their base voters to have to come out and vote on election Day. We take a look on maybe a broader level here. The poll looked at former president Donald trump's favorability, favorability found two thirds of new Yorkers have an unfavorable view of him. Does this foreshadow anything at all, particularly if he decides to run for re election following the results of the midterms? Well, we we should point out that the former president has never been popular in his former home state. We start, we started polling on Donald Trump back in the early 2010s when he was thinking about or talking about potentially running for governor. Uh, and Donald trump has never been popular in new york before. He was president while he was president since he's been president Right now, only 36% of New Yorker's view him favorably, 61% view him unfavorably. Um you know, I think that's why you seeing the whole local campaign trying to tie Zeldin to Trump and why you saw the Zeldin campaign after he got the former president's endorsement last week trying to low key that saying it really wasn't news. It's no big deal. He's endorsed me already. So I think both campaigns know that Donald trump the more he's discussed, the more it hurts republicans, the more it helps democrats have about a minute left before we have to go into a break here, but I want to flip the ballot over for a second and ask you about the latest on how voters say they intend to vote on the $4.2 billion Environmental Bond act? Sure. Well, right now, 54% of new Yorkers say they intend to vote Yes, 26% say they're gonna vote no uh unchanged change the point. So really did not change. It's the same as it was back in september. But what we do see three quarters of democrats, more than three quarters of democrats say they're gonna vote yes by a 2 to 1 margin. Republicans say they're gonna vote no and independence on this question, they look a little bit more like democrats by a margin of 47 to 32%. Uh Independent voters say they plan to vote yes. We know there's always a large follow up because as you say, voters have to flip the ballot over to vote on these uh ballot proposals in this case, uh the $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act. So if voters want to register their opinion yes or no, they've got to remember to flip the ballot over. Absolutely. And we hear a lot of politicians who are reminding voters to do just that we have to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're gonna get Sienna College pollster Stephen Greenberg's final thoughts on the midterm elections in just a few weeks, we'll be right back welcome back to power and politics were wrapping up with Sienna College pollster steven? Greenberg steven, we have about a minute left. What are your final thoughts on the race? Is what of this polling stands out to you? Sure, Well, my final thoughts is I'm going to urge every viewer whether you're a democrat, republican or independent or a member of one of the minor parties, make sure to vote on november 8th, vote early or vote by absentee, but vote Four years ago, in the last midterm election, 54% of eligible New Yorkers voted. And that was considered a huge turnout. Little over half. Why was that considered a huge turnout? Because four years previously in 2014, only 36%, barely a little more than a third of New York eligible voters voted. So really it's up to the voters to decide why but who they want leading them in all of these various offices, from local offices to legislature, to congress, to senate and our statewide offices. And I would just say we really need everybody to turn out and give their voice. Um that's what makes this democracy as great as it is. That is of course, great advice. Thank you so much for the time today. Thank you. Well, news 12 reporters across the region covering these races and more to make sure you're watching during the weeks leading up to election day as we sit down with the candidates and analyze the issues that are on your mind. Once again, I'm Jonathan Gordon? This is power and politics on news 12 where local matters more news weather and your hyperlocal headlines are coming up after the break.

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