Poll: AG race remains closest of statewide contests

ALBANY - The race for attorney general remains the closest of this year's five contests for statewide office, according to a poll released Friday.

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found Democrat Eric Schneiderman ahead of Republican Dan Donovan by 11 percentage points among likely voters. That compares with an 18-point gap between the candidates for governor and state comptroller and more than 20 points in each of the U.S. Senate races.

Schneiderman, a state senator from Manhattan, beats Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, 43 percent to 32 percent with people likely to cast ballots Nov. 2. Twenty-four percent were undecided, and 1 percent planned to vote for someone else.

However, neither candidate is well known to voters statewide, with 75 percent saying they didn't know enough about Schneiderman to form an opinion, and 85 percent saying the same of Donovan.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a Democrat, and Republican rival Harry Wilson also are strangers to 65 percent and 90 percent of voters, respectively.

DiNapoli, a former assemblyman from Great Neck, was ahead of Wilson, a retired hedge fund manager from Scarsdale, 49-31. Twenty percent were undecided and 1 percent planned to vote for someone else.

In Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's first bid for election, the upstate Democrat trounces GOP challenger Joseph DioGuardi, 55 percent to 34 percent. Eleven percent were undecided.

Incumbent Sen. Charles Schumer, a Democrat, leads Republican political consultant Jay Townsend, 63 percent to 32 percent. Four percent were undecided, and 1 percent planned to vote for someone else.

The poll of 1,141 likely voters, conducted Oct. 1-5, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 points.