All Over Albany

How New Yorkers see the presidential race

A lot of the stuff about the presidential race in the Siena poll out Monday is, well, pretty much what you'd expect in New York State. Democratic respondents said they preferred Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders 55-34 in a primary. And respondents picked Clinton over all the potential Republicans in a theoretical matchup by relatively consistent margins of about 57-32 (or thereabout).

But one of the things about Hillary Clinton is that she's a polarizing figure -- even here in New York State, which elected her to the US Senate. That table above lists how many Republican respondents to the Siena poll said they would vote for either Clinton or Bernie Sanders in a hypothetical matchup with each of the various Republican contenders. (The margin of error for Republicans in the poll is relatively high -- see below -- so grains of salt.)

Yep, some number of Republicans not only said they're likely to vote for the Democrat -- but a portion (or portions) said they'd be more likely to do so if the Democrat was Bernie Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton. And just going on general ideology, that's kind of unexpected because Sanders has repeatedly described himself as a socialist -- and even criticized Clinton for being too moderate.

Of course, there's a lot more to the situation, including a Hillary Clinton's long history in the political spotlight. But, still, the preference is a little surprising.

Speaking of polarizing figures (Donald Trump)...

Donald Trump had the largest percentage of respondents in the poll describe their view of him as "unfavorable" -- 77 percent -- of any of the presidential candidates. Even among Republicans respondents, Trump had a 51/43 favorable/unfavorable split. (Only Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz had unfavorables that high among Republicans.)

But among respondents registered with the party, Trump still had the highest number of people say they'd vote for him in a Republican primary here -- 34 percent. The next highest were Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio at 16 percent.

Who's going to win?
The Siena poll asked respondents, regardless of who they support, who they thought would actually win the presidency. About half said Clinton (49 percent), with Trump getting the next most mentions (19 percent).

The Siena Research Institute says the poll was conducted January 31-February 3. Margin of error for all respondents is +/- 3.8 percent, for registered Democrats it's +/- 5.6 percent, and for registered Republicans it's +/- 7 percent.