Voters Divided Over Senate Pick
New York voters remain divided over who Gov. David Paterson should select to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Senate, a poll released today shows.
A Siena College poll found that 26 percent of voters said state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo should be the pick, while 23 percent said Caroline Kennedy.
Albany-area Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand received seven percent support, Buffalo Congressman Brian Higgins received six percent, and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi five percent.
Still, nearly one in five voters had no opinion. Cuomo led in every region in the state, while Kennedy led among African American and Latino voters, and they tied with younger voters.
Kennedy and Cuomo had nearly identical approval ratings, at 58 percent and 59 percent, respectively.
Still, voters think that Paterson is more likely to pick Kennedy over Cuomo – 31 percent of voters think he will pick Kennedy, while only 16 percent think he will choose Cuomo.
“Voters currently see Andrew Cuomo and Caroline Kennedy, the scions of two of the most prominent political families, as their top choices to be New York’s next junior senator,” said Steven Greenberg, spokesman for the Siena poll.
Kennedy has been quietly campaigning for the position in recent weeks, reaching out to Democratic leaders and other officials across the state. She is expected to make her first visit upstate tonight in Syracuse, where she is reportedly to meet privately with Syracuse Mayor
Matt Driscoll and other local leaders.
Her aides would not say whether is expecting to visit other areas today, but have indicated she plans an upstate tour in the near future.
Kennedy has been slowly building up support from leaders, including from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and in upstate with Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, Monroe County. She is also close with President-elect Barack Obama, who she campaigned for.
Some Democratic officials said privately this week that it is becoming increasingly likely that Paterson will be hard pressed to not pick Kennedy as her support grows. Some officials said the only other person that could compete with Kennedy’s stature is Cuomo.
Yet Cuomo has not publicly said whether he is interested in the job.
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Nice to see New York and Paterson getting some national attention in regard to the vacant seat. Fox News has a nice story on the governor using his own gubernatorial ambitions as a factor in the appointment. In the wake of the Blago scandal, Paterson wouldn’t be that naive, would he?
Paying to play and Contributing to play aren’t much different. It’s reprehensible that Paterson would use his own future as a deciding factor on who he will appoint to represent the entire state in the U.S. Senate. But I guess we shouldn’t be surprised
-J.Burke
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