NEW YORK CITY — Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has erased former governor Eliot Spitzer’s 19-point lead in the comptroller’s race, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
Stringer and Spitzer are now neck-and-neck at 46 percent each among likely Democratic primary voters, with 8 percent still undecided. Spitzer led Stringer in the last Quinnipiac poll 56 to 37 percent. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
“The entire political and media world has jumped on Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s bandwagon, helping him poll-vault from 19 points down to dead even in just two weeks,” said Maurice Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement.
Stringer campaign manager Sascha Owen said in a statement, "After five years since he left office in disgrace, New Yorkers are being reminded of the mess that Eliot Spitzer left us. As voters around the city get to know Scott Stringer, they are seeing that the choice is clear — and we'll be fighting to the last hour to win over every last one of them."
Pollsters credited part of the jump as coming from black voters who have shifted towards Stringer over the last two weeks, despite still preferring Spitzer overall.
While Spitzer was supported by 68 percent of black voters polled in the previous survey, the last Quinnipiac results show Spitzer’s support evaporating down to 52 percent. Meanwhile, Stringer’s support has doubled, from 21 percent in the previous poll up to 40 percent in the most recent.
“The black vote, which has shifted dramatically in the last two weeks, still tips to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Stringer holds a big lead among white voters,” Carroll said. “Did the avalanche of media criticism knock Spitzer out of the lead?”
The poll of 602 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted between August 22 and 27 over landlines and cell phones.
