Joseph Spector

Albany Bureau Chief

ALBANY - Hillary Clinton maintained a 21 percentage-point lead over Donald Trump in New York, a poll Tuesday found, down slightly from last month.

Clinton was beating Trump 51 percent to 30 percent in the two candidates' home state, the Siena College poll found. She had a 25 percentage-point lead last month.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson held 8 percent of the vote, while Green Party candidate Jill Stein had 3 percent, the poll said.

“Clinton holds her base better than Trump holds his," Steven Greenberg, the Siena Poll spokesman, said in a statement.

"She leads with Democrats 75 percent to 10 percent, while Trump holds a 67 percent to 16 percent lead with Republicans."

Both candidates have strong ties to the mid-Hudson Valley. Trump owns Trump National Golf Club, Hudson Valley, in Stormville, and has family members who own property in the region. Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, was married in Rhinebeck.

Both campaigns held events in Poughkeepsie in April prior to the New York Primary, with Trump speaking to thousands in the Mid-Hudson Civic Center on April 17, the same day Chelsea Clinton spoke at the Civil Service Employee union's office.

Trump, the Republican nominee, has vowed to compete in New York, saying he expects to fare well. Clinton, meanwhile, is opening campaign offices across New York.

New York has twice as many enrolled Democrats than Republicans. But among voters not registered in a party, Clinton held a narrow 39 percent to 37 percent lead over Trump, the poll found.

Clinton was ahead 52 percentage points in New York City and six percentage points upstate. The candidates are virtually tied in the New York City suburbs, according to the poll.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Democrat seeking a fourth term on Election Day, had a huge lead on his Republican foe, Wendy Long, the poll found.

He was beating Long 69 percent to 23 percent, Siena said.

The poll also surveyed voters on some national issues.

By more than three-to-one, likely New York voters said they supported a pathway for citizenship for people in the country illegally. There was a similar margin of New Yorkers who believed "climate change is a significant threat to our planet."

Voters also said they want to keep and improve, rather than repeal and replace, the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

By a 15 percentage-point margin, New Yorkers considered themselves gun-control supporters rather than 2nd Amendment supporters, Siena said.

All 213 seats in the state Legislature are on the ballot in November, too.

The state Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans, had a 48 percent to 41 percent favorability rating, the best it has ever been in a Siena poll.

By a 51 percent to 38 percent margin, voters said they’re inclined to re-elect their state senator, up a few percentage points from August

The favorability rate in the Assembly was smaller: 44 percent to 40 percent.

“Legislative elections are run district by district and not statewide, however, seven weeks from election day, voters view the Legislature as favorably today as they have at any time in the last decade," Greenberg said.

By a 53 percent to 38 percent margin, voters said New York is on the right track. That's better than the 51 percent to 41 percent view of the country's direction.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo had a 57 percent to 39 percent favorability rating, up slightly from last month's Siena poll.

If Cuomo runs for a third term in 2018, 45 percent said they were prepared to re-elect him, compared to 49 percent who would prefer "someone else," the poll said.

"Cuomo’s ratings with voters remain largely stagnant over the course of his second term — he’s viewed favorably by a small majority of voters, and a majority of voters give him a negative job performance rating," Greenberg said.

The Siena poll was conducted Sept. 11-15 to 600 likely New York voters. It had a margin of error of 5 percentage points.