Trump and Clinton retain large leads in New York poll, but Trump voted 'real New Yorker'


An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released late Monday found Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton with double-digit leads among likely voters in the April 19 New York primary. Trump leads John Kasich by 33 points, 54 percent to 21 percent, while Ted Cruz is lagging behind at 18 percent. Clinton has a 14-point lead over Bernie Sanders, 55 percent to 41 percent, bolstered by strong support among women, black voters, and older Democrats. "New York is not likely to enhance the hopes of those trying to close the gap in the delegate hunt," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
The poll also asked about which candidate is a "real New Yorker," and Trump won that contest, with 41 percent, while 25 percent of registered voters called Brooklyn-born Sanders a real New Yorker and 23 percent said the same of Clinton, a former senator representing New York. Trump's perceived New Yorker-ness didn't win him his home city, though: In the five boroughs, he lost to Clinton, 78 percent to 17 percent. And Democratic primary voters actually named Clinton more of a real New Yorker than Sanders, 42 percent versus 39 percent.
In head-to-head matchups, Sanders and Clinton both beat each Republican candidate by double digits in New York. Clinton beats Sanders by a sizable amount in New York City and its suburbs, while the two are effectively tied upstate, the poll found. While Clinton and Sanders each performed well among their usual demographics, Latino New Yorkers broke slightly for Sanders. Also, 30 percent of Sanders voters told the pollsters they wouldn't back Clinton in November, while 15 percent of Clinton voters said the same of Sanders. The poll was conducted April 6-10 with 259 likely GOP voters and 557 likely Democratic voters; it carries a margin of error of ±6.1 percentage points for the GOP voters and ±4.2 points for the Democrats. The "real New Yorker" question reached 1,987 registered voters and has a margin of error of ±2.2 points.
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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