Gibson Leading In Key New York District

By Scott Bland  //  September 21, 2012 | 6:21 a.m.

Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., sports a solid double-digit lead and majority support in New York's 19th Congressional District, according to results of a Siena poll released Friday morning.

Gibson leads Democratic challenger Julian Schreibman 52 percent to 36 percent in the independent survey, a strong starting point for the freshman incumbent. The poll was conducted by Siena College Research Institute, which surveyed 635 likely voters from Sept. 17-18. The poll's margin of error is plus-or-minus 3.9 percentage points.

There is some favorable information for Schreibman, a former prosecutor, in the survey's other questions. The Democratic brand is strong in the district; President Obama narrowly out-polls Mitt Romney, 49 percent to 45 percent, and has a net even favorable rating, while more respondents had unfavorable opinions than favorable opinions about Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. Forty-six percent of respondents had unfavorable opinions of Ryan compared to 41 percent who had favorable opinions, which is probably among the reasons why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee linked Gibson to Ryan in a television ad running in the district.

But opinions of Gibson himself are largely positive -- 43 percent favorable to 28 percent unfavorable -- while nearly two-thirds of the 19th District hasn't formed an opinion or heard of Schreibman, whose campaign recently released a TV ad to start correcting that. The 19th District poll has some similarities to Siena's poll in New York's 1st District, released last week. Gibson, like 1st District Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop, is outperforming his party's presidential nominee and has more than majority support, though the opposing party has targeted the district as a possible pickup opportunity. Schreibman does have more of an opportunity to define himself than Bishop's Republican opponent, Randy Altschuler, whose image was bruised in a savage 2010 campaign against Bishop.

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