Vice President Kamala Harris has a 14-point lead over former President Donald Trump among likely voters in New York, according to a Siena College poll released on Tuesday that shows the new Democratic candidate gaining ground over her Republican rival.
In the first public survey of likely New York voters taken since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid last month, 53% of respondents said they back Harris, compared to 39% who support Trump.
“The change at the top of the Democratic ticket has had a noticeable, while not dramatic, effect on the horse race,” Siena pollster Steve Greenberg said in a statement.
Trump’s numbers held steady since the previous Siena poll, conducted in late June. But Harris’ showing surged compared to Biden, with new support coming primarily from Democratic and independent voters. Her 14-point lead is still notably smaller than Biden’s margin of victory in the state in 2020.
In June, Siena found that Biden had just an eight-point lead over Trump among registered voters in New York, leading Republicans to wonder aloud whether the deep-blue state could go red for the first time since Ronald Reagan won in a national landslide in 1984.
The swing toward Harris could have a significant effect on down-ballot races, which will help determine which party takes control of the U.S. House of Representatives after the November election.
Crucially for Democrats, the new poll showed Harris picking up support in the New York City suburbs, where Democrats and Republicans are battling over a handful of marginal districts that tipped the House to GOP control in 2022. In a head-to-head race, Harris is running even with Trump in the suburbs, 47-47%, according to Siena. That’s a significant change from the college’s June poll, whose results showed Trump crushing Biden in the same region, 48-35%.
Harris’ statewide lead over Trump shrinks slightly, to 49-37%, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and minor-party candidates are included, according to Siena. Kennedy, who is in the midst of an ongoing trial over his Westchester County residency that could knock him off the New York ballot, has support from 7% of likely New York voters polled.
The Democratic Party in New York has long relied on its presidential candidates to run up the score at the top of the ticket. That can create a trickle-down effect for the party’s candidates down the ballot.
This year, Republican Reps. Anthony D’Esposito and Nick LaLota are facing stiff challenges from Democrats Laura Gillen and John Avlon, respectively, on Long Island. In the Hudson Valley, Republican Rep. Michael Lawler is facing a challenge from Democratic former Rep. Mondaire Jones, while Republican Alison Esposito is running against Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan.
Harris’ 14-point lead in the latest Siena poll trails what other Democratic candidates have put on the board in previous election cycles. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by 23 percentage points in New York, which was slightly higher than Hillary Clinton’s 22-point margin of victory in the state in 2016.
Siena polled 1,199 likely New York state voters by phone from July 28 through Aug. 1, taking a representative sample designed to mimic the state’s electorate across political party, gender, ethnicity, age and other attributes. The poll carries a margin of error of four percentage points.