Democratic New York Has Its Limits

The charts above show the approval and disapproval ratings of various candidates in New York. They were made using information from a recent Siena College Poll (conducted between August 4th and 7th of 814 registered voters in the state of New York -- with a margin of error of 3.4 points).

New York, to its credit, is usually considered to be a solidly Democratic Party state. It has a Democratic governor, two Democratic U.S. Senators, and 21 of their 27 current U.S. Representatives are Democrats. It has also voted for the Democratic candidate in the last seven presidential elections (from 1988 through 2012). That's a record for which New York voters can be justifiability proud.

But don't take that to mean New Yorkers will accept anyone who runs as a Democrat. This recent Siena College Poll shows there is a limit to the tolerance of that state's voters. Note that while New York voters give Hillary Clinton, Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and Governor Cuomo very high approval ratings (significantly about 50%), there are a couple of Democrats running for election this year that New Yorkers give a very poor approval rating.

Eliot Spitzer, running for NYC Comptroller, gets only a 33% approval rating from voters. And Anthony Weiner, running for NYC Mayor, makes evens Spitzer's anemic rating look good. His approval from New York voters is only about 11%.

Even though Spitzer is currently leading in the polls of NYC voters, he does not have majority support. There are still a significant amount of undecided voters -- and with a disapproval rating of 59%, he may find it difficult to make inroads into that undecided vote. He could still win, but it will probably be close (and I certainly won't be betting on the outcome of that race).

For Weiner though, it is all over but the shouting. In the poll, he registered a massive disapproval rating of 80% among registered voters (a figure reached by no other politician of either party since Siena College began polling back in 1995 -- 18 years ago). It's still about a month before the Democratic primary in New York and Weiner has started running some TV ads now, but I just don't see that he has any path to victory.

New York is definitely a state that has been good to the Democratic Party. But there is a limit to their tolerance. Weiner has passed that tolerance limit, and his refusal to drop out of the race is just further embarrassing himself and other Democrats.