ALBANY – President Bush would narrowly beat Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton – and clobber other top national Democrats – in a race for president among heavily Democratic New York voters, a new poll yesterday showed.
Republican Bush, his popularity boosted by the Iraq war win, defeats the former first lady, 47 to 44 percent, in a hypothetical matchup, largely on the strength of huge margins upstate and in the suburbs, the Quinnipiac University survey found.
Clinton led Bush in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City, 61 to 29 percent, while Bush was ahead in the suburbs, 58 to 35 percent, and upstate, 57 to 33 percent, according to the poll.
“New Yorkers want Hillary to stay home,” said Quinnipiac polling director Maurice Carroll.
“They’d rather have her call Chappaqua home than to try going back to Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Meanwhile, the new poll found Bush with a solid, 58 to 37 percent, job-approval rating among New York voters. Clinton’s rating, while positive, was slightly weaker, at 52 to 36 percent.
In New York, Bush suffered a landslide defeat at the hands of then-Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, and Democrats expect to carry the state against Bush next year.
“That a president fresh off a wartime win would poll higher than most wannabes isn’t surprising,” Carroll said.
“What will surprise many is that President Bush does so well against Sen. Clinton when, in 2000, Bush was so far behind in New York he didn’t even bother to campaign.”
The new poll found 31 percent of New Yorkers saying they were more likely to vote for Bush’s re-election as a result of the Iraq war, while 28 percent said they were less likely.
Thirty-eight percent said the war hadn’t changed their position.
The poll – of 885 registered New York voters conducted April 15-21 – also found Bush chalking up even more impressive victories against several announced Democratic presidential hopefuls.
Bush would soundly defeat Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut or John Kerry of Massachusetts by the same, 50 to 38 percent, while he’d beat Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt by an almost identical 49 to 38 percent, according to the poll.
The Quinnipiac poll did not match Bush with New York’s other Democratic U.S. senator, Charles Schumer, or against long-shot presidential hopeful the Rev. Al Sharpton.
—-
DUBYA ON TOP
President Bush vs. Sen. Hillary Clinton
Clinton: 44%
Bush: 47%
Undecided: 9%
President Bush vs. Sen Joseph Lieberman
Lieberman: 38%
Bush: 50%
Undecided: 12%
President Bush vs. Sen. John Kerry
Kerry: 38%
Bush: 50%
Undecided: 12%
President Bush vs. Rep. Richard Gephardt
Gephardt: 38%
Bush: 49%
Undecided: 13%