Poll: John Katko holds 15-point lead over Dana Balter in race for Congress

[Julian Englis]

Source: Syracuse.com

U.S. Rep. John Katko has a 15 percentage point lead over Dana Balter heading into the final 10 weeks of their campaign for Congress, according to an independent poll released Monday night.

Katko, R-Camillus, is favored 54-39 percent over Balter, a Syracuse Democrat, according to the Spectrum News/Siena College poll of likely voters.

It is the first independent poll to be made public this year in the race for the 24th Congressional District seat.

The poll found Balter has a strong base of support in Syracuse, where voters favor her by a two-to-one margin. But Katko leads in the Onondaga County suburbs by 14 points and has a two-to-one lead in Cayuga, Oswego and Wayne counties.

Read more: https://www.syracuse.com/politics/index.ssf/2018/08/poll_john_katko_holds_15-point_lead_over_dana_balter_in_race_for_congress.html

---

You need to get out and vote to prevent this.

[nycbos]

1. The district is currently rated as likely GOP

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2018-house/

[RandySF]

6. It was a tossup before the primary.

[rpannier]

12. According to who?

PPP seems to be the only poll that had the Democrats in it
Katko has won this district by 20% the last two times

[RandySF]

13. Cook Political Report

[rpannier]

14. Be curious how they got their numbers

According to auburnpub, which covers politics in the area, Williams lead Balter by about 13 percent (Siena poll)
Also, for your reading would point out, that the local Democratic Party endorsed Balter before the National Party jumped in

Maybe it wasn't our revolution that got her elected. Maybe it was our revolution bowing to the wishes of the local party
Maybe it's a little more involved than the national party versus an insurgent group

https://auburnpub.com/blogs/eye_on_ny/things-to-know-about-dana-balter-s-win-in-democratic/article_283c77c2-79c1-11e8-bae1-cfd7cb61695e.html

https://auburnpub.com/blogs/eye_on_ny/poll-more-voters-say-perez-williams-has-better-chance-of/article_3a0d3036-70b6-11e8-af4b-070b455872ae.html

It's a blow to national Democrats. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's decision to intervene backfired. National Democrats didn't embrace Balter's grassroots approach and instead backed Perez Williams. It was a questionable decision then because it split the party. Local Democrats had already endorsed Balter and for more than a month it didn't appear she would have to worry about a primary.

[Decoy of Fenris]

16. Yeah. The DCCC really screwed the pooch with this one.

And why they decided to run Perez Williams, fresh off her Mayoral loss, I'll never understand.

[bearsfootball516]

2. Katko won this district by 22 points two years ago.

Not saying it's impossible to flip, but this is a deeply red district.

[LBM20]

3. Gotta remember, some of these are HEAVILY RePUKE districts. Many Dems will do BETTER than previous

cycles, but still hard to flip HEAVILY red districts. We gotta target the purple ones.

[oberliner]

4. Katko won in 2016 by 20 points and won in 2014 by 20 points

[Julian Englis]

5. Gotta remember that we still need to try.

[RandySF]

7. Cook Political Report rated this a tossup before the primary.

[Decoy of Fenris]

15. I'd advise better sources. Cook didn't do their research. Deep, deep red territory.

The Primary contender in that race, Juanita Perez Williams, sets off many of the local "outsider" alarms in upstate New York. That she was originally from San Diego tended to turn people off to her and she was seen as something of a carpetbagger (even though she's been up here for years). I know the reports on her not-insignificant personal debt also didn't aid her any, especially when she ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility and economic growth. Never mind that she had no name recognition in the least until the last... maybe week? Also of some consideration is her mayoral loss earlier in the year. All of that, plus her significantly late entry into the race and lack of subsequent endorsements? There's absolutely no way she would have stood a chance against Katko.


Doesn't help that Democrats haven't tried to seriously contest that area in a long while. It's about as red as you can get north of the Mason-Dixon line, I think.

[Julian Englis]

8. FiveThirtyEight.com has tweeted this explanation on the the race

This is a weird race where the "fundamentals" pointed toward a lean Republican race, Cook et. al. had it likely Republican—but the only poll was a partisan one from PPP that had the D ahead. So in some ways, the new poll (showing the R up 15) is more in line with other evidence.

Link to tweet

With that said, still a very good poll for the GOP. The easiest way for Republicans to hold the House is simply if enough of their incumbents outrun the partisan lean of their districts.

Link to tweet

[rockfordfile]

10. What the hell? What makes this poll any less partisan?

Why did you repeat the same thing over and over?

[Julian Englis]

11. A non-partisan organization commissioned and conducted the poll.

[BumRushDaShow]

18. "Why did you repeat the same thing over and over?"

As a note, there are a number of DUers who are unable to or choose not to display tweets that are embedded in posts. Thus to accommodate them, many (including me as well) will also post the "text" portion from the tweet alongside the (graphical) tweet, so that all DUers can read the content of the tweet.

[Honeycombe8]

9. Bad news. Big lead. nt

[whistler162]

17. Not surprising... I doubt

Stephanie Miner would have fared any better. Republicans have pretty much held that seat in its various redistricting for ever. A few Democrats but it was a dynasty with Bill Walsh, Democrat, Jim Walsh, Dan Maffei, she who will remain nameless, Dan Maffei, and Katko.

[bucolic_frolic]

19. There are local economic and demographic districts that wouldn't flip

with a blockbuster bomb. Prosperous small city suburbs with ethnic populations that don't vary over time, economies thriving on medical and educational growth, and I would suspect higher than average income. It's almost a city-state unto itself. Perhaps a "liberal" area in the cultural sense, but since everyone is happy there, how are you going to convince them a Democrat will solve their problems? New Yorkers have little focus on culture wars, their rights are taken for granted. So this is not a surprise to me. Only a last minute national wave will make it a close race, and how do you get that in midterm elections?