Gov. Kathy Hochul’s lead over Republican rival Bruce Blakeman in New York’s gubernatorial race has narrowed to just about four points, an internal GOP poll obtained by The Post claims.
Blakeman trailed the Democratic incumbent by just 4.4 points — 50.3% to 45.9% — according to the survey conducted by On Message Inc. for Republican Saritha Komatireddy’s campaign for attorney general.
The same poll showed Democratic Attorney General Letitia James leading Komatireddy by 6 points, 50.7% to 44.7%.
The Komatireddy campaign poll of 1,000 likely New York voters also asked about the governor’s race.
It showed Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, with a dominant lead in the Buffalo region — Hochul’s home turf — 56% to 42%.
While the City of Buffalo leans Democrat, the surrounding counties are among the most conservative and Republican-leaning in the state.
Voters in the Albany region also favored Blakeman over Hochul 52% to 44%, and other rural parts of the state backed the Republican 62% to 33%, according to the survey.
Hochul’s biggest lead was in the New York City media market, where she led Blakeman 54.2% to 41.9%.
The market includes Long Island and the northern Hudson Valley suburbs, such as Westchester and Rockland counties, as well as the Big Apple’s five boroughs.
Hochul, who is seeking a second four-year term on November 3, held slight leads in the Rochester and Syracuse regions, 50% to 46% and 49.1% to 47.1%, respectively.
“This race for governor is very competitive,” said campaign strategist O’Brien “O.B.” Murray, who worked on Republican George Pataki’s successful campaign for governor in 1994.
“In this race anything can happen. Four years ago people were tiring of Kathy Hochul. Nobody expected that race to be that close,” said Murray, referring to Hochul’s narrow six point victory in 2022 over Republican Lee Zeldin.
The survey aligns with Blakeman’s own campaign polling, which last month showed him trailing Hochul by 4 points. In a survey released last week, new pollster Pollfinity also had Hochul ahead by a slim 4 points.
But the Real Clear Politics average of four recent surveys done by veteran independent pollsters show Hochul ahead of Blakeman by a more comfortable average of 12.8 points — ranging from 9 points in a Siena University to 19 points in a Quinnipiac U poll taken over the last month, the latter predicting a bigger New York City voter turnout.
The Komatireddy campaign poll of 1,000 likely voters by the firm OnMessage Inc. was conducted from October 12–14. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
OnMessage Inc. was ranked as one of the most accurate pollsters during the 2024 election cycle.
The Hochul campaign insisted that the incumbent governor has the “lead” and “momentum” when asked about the tight poll.
“Governor Hochul continues to build her lead and momentum – New Yorkers want nothing to do with the same Bruce Blakeman who promised to ‘cut Medicaid in half,’ never disagree with Donald Trump, and said ICE was doing a ‘very, very good job’ as they abused their power in New York and across the country,” said Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki.
