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Republican candidate for governor Bruce Blakeman speaks during the New York State Conservative Party convention on Feb. 2 at the Hilton in Albany. The state\u2019s Public Campaign Finance Board has denied Blakeman matching funds.<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s call Tuesday an up-and-down day for Bruce Blakeman, the Republican running for governor. He received some good news and some not-so-good news.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ll start with the newly released poll from the Siena Research Institute in lovely Loudonville. Its survey of 804 registered voters found that Blakeman is losing to Gov. Kathy Hochul by 13 percentage points.<\/p>\n
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Now, it may surprise you to learn that I\u2019m classifying that poll result<\/a> as good news, given that it suggests\u00a0Blakeman would get smoked if the election were held today. But a 13-point gap is better than a 20-point gap, which is what Siena found when it last sampled voters in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n The margin appears to be shrinking, and it might be significantly tighter when Siena narrows the survey pool from registered voters to\u00a0likely ones. Notably, the poll found that 64 percent of respondents said they didn\u2019t know enough about\u00a0Blakeman to have an opinion of him, meaning the Nassau County executive still has room to convince New Yorkers that he should be their choice.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But that brings me to the bad news, which came in the form of a grossly partisan vote by the state\u2019s Public Campaign Finance Board. Its four Democratic members, a majority, denied up to $7 million in campaign matching funds to Blakeman based on a rule change that, as the Times Union\u2019s Timothy Fanning reports<\/a>, staffers failed to communicate to campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n