A New York Times/Siena College poll has Vice-President Harris polling at the lowest numbers for a Democratic presidential nominee in decades.
It comes just hours before former president Donald Trump is scheduled to hold a historic rally at Madison Square Garden, where he is expected to re-iterate that he is making a long-shot play for the state’s 28 electoral college votes.
The new poll, released Saturday morning, shows Harris leading Trump by 66% to 27% among registered voters, still a substantial lead but a major decline, judging by President Biden’s 76% to 23% win over Trump in the deep blue city in 2020.
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If it holds, it would represent the worst showing for a Democratic presidential candidate in the city since 1988, according to The New York Times.
The top three issues affecting registered voters in the poll are the economy, followed by immigration and abortion.
The city has battled several crises over the last few years and is still reeling from the effects of its COVID-19 era lockdowns.
New York City has the highest median monthly rent for one-bedrooms out of 100 cities, according to rental marketplace platform Zumper.
The city continues to house tens of thousands of migrants with spending on the crisis expected to exceed $5 billion, and Mayor Eric Adams has previously said that costs could balloon to over $10 billion by the end of next fiscal year.
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Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Adams’ administration is also in crisis mode after he was indicted last month on bribery and corruption charges while New York Gov. Kathy Hochul performed weakly in the 2022 governor’s race, winning by only six points.
In the midterm elections, Democratic candidates for the House won the state’s popular vote by only nine percentage points on average, according to the Times, compared with Biden’s roughly 23-point victory in 2020. Biden took New York state by 60.87% to Trump’s garnering 37.74%, a 1% gain for the former president, compared to 2016.
The Democrats’ struggle for House control in the midterms arguably ran through New York, with the party losing four seats, including several in Democratic-leaning districts.
Trump has made national gains among Black, Hispanic and younger voters, and he is seeking to tap into this demographic with his rally on Sunday.
He also visited a Bronx barbershop earlier this week and in May held a rally in the borough, with a permit allowance of 3,500 people. The New York Post reported that the Bronx rally drew up to 10,000 supporters.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 20 to Oct. 23, with pollsters speaking with 853 voters in New York City. Overall, more than 98 percent of respondents were contacted on a cellphone, and the poll has a margin of error of 3.9%
A national New York Times/Siena College poll has the two candidates deadlocked at 48% each.
