State Democrats lead in polls as convention kicks off

State Democrats will meet today to begin nominating their slate for this year”™s elections, with the latest Quinnipiac University poll showing strong leads for all of the party”™s candidates.

Over the next two days, Democrats will nominate for re-election Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman. Party leaders and delegates are meeting in Melville, Long Island, for the convention.

The suburban settings for the major party conventions ”“ Republicans caucused last week in Westchester County ”“ is viewed by some political analysts as a message in a year when the top state races could be decided in suburban counties. With a slate of incumbents, the excitement of the Democratic convention will come Thursday with the nomination of a lieutenant governor candidate, after current Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy decided not to seek re-election this year.

The convention kicks off with each Democratic candidate appearing to have a comfortable lead over his Republican opponent. Maurice Carroll, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, said, “It looks like a Democratic year.”

A Quinnipiac poll released today showed Cuomo maintaining a lead over Republican challenger Rob Astorino by a margin of 57 percent to 28 percent.

Astorino, Westchester”™s county executive, made up some ground since a February Quinnipiac poll, in which he trailed Cuomo 58 percent to 24 percent, but the GOP challenger is still building name recognition outside of the area (74 percent of those polled said they didn”™t know enough about him).

What could complicate Cuomo”™s chances are the inclusion of a third candidate that voters would perceive as more liberal, according to Quinnipiac. Cuomo”™s vote total drops to 37 percent, to Astorino’s 24 percent, if a hypothetical candidate runs on the pro-union Working Families Party line. The unnamed candidate would get 22 percent in that scenario, the poll said. Cuomo has clashed with the Working Families leadership over several labor-based issues.

Schneiderman led Republican candidate John Cahill, 46 percent to 27 percent, and DiNapoli led 50 percent to 29 percent over a Republican, though at the time of the polling the candidate hadn”™t been named. Onondaga County Comptroller Robert Antonacci was named the GOP”™s pick to run against DiNapoli in Westchester last week.