The first public poll of voters in the 21st Congressional District is showing that Blake Gendebien, the St. Lawrence County dairy farmer and Democrat, is leading his Republican opponent, Sticker Mule CEO Anthony T. Constantino.
This poll is the first independent, nonpartisan survey to focus on this year’s race and the first to focus on the north country district in at least six years.
Reaching likely voters, the survey asked their opinions and their self-reported likelihood to vote for the candidates in the race, as well as their positions on other politicians and issues relevant to the region.
Commissioned by Albany news station WNYT, Channel 13 through pollster SurveyUSA, it found that Gendebien is leading Constantino by 4 percentage points, 43% to 39%. The poll also included independent, write-in candidate Christopher Schmidt, who carried support of 5% of voters, with another 13% of voters undecided.
Both Constantino and Gendebien have the backing of a strong majority of their party membership, although Gendebien seems to have a stronger backing among Democrats than Constantino does with Republicans.
Among self-described “very conservative” voters, Constantino has the support of 83% of voters, 51% from Republicans in general, and 45% among “somewhat conservative” voters. Among people who say they may vote but are not sure, Constantino leads by 6 percentage points, but among people who said they are sure to vote, Gendebien has a 6 percentage point lead.
Gendebien has the support of 86% of self-described “very liberal” voters, and 71% from “somewhat liberal” voters, and has the backing of 69% of Democrats, which is an 18 percentage point lead over Constantino’s support from Republicans. Gendebien also has a strong lead among moderate and independent voters, with a 29-point lead with moderates and a 19-point lead with independents.
Gendebien also does better with the more educated residents of the 21st District; he’s got a 31-point lead with college graduates, while Constantino has a 33-point lead among high school graduates and a 6-point lead with people who attended, but didn’t graduate from college.
As for the issues, the largest proportion of voters said inflation and the cost of living are their top concerns at 46% of voters. Those voters who put cost of living at the top of their issues prefer Gendebien by 18 percentage points.
The next-most-popular issue is housing costs and property tax rates, cited as a top issue by 13% of voters. Constantino leads with that group by 15 points.
Third on the list was jobs and economic growth, cited as the top issue by 11% of voters, who prefer Gendebien to Constantino by 6 points.
The other cited issues include healthcare access, with 9% of voters putting that at the top of their list. Those voters preferred Gendebien by 57 points. The last issue of border security and immigration was cited as a top concern of 8% of voters, who preferred Constantino by 72 points.
This poll also asked voters for their opinions on five politicians; Constantino, Gendebien, outgoing Congresswoman Elise M. Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul. Among those five, only Gendebien came out with a net-favorable rating, with 44% reporting a positive opinion of the Democratic candidate to 22% with a negative opinion and 34% unfamiliar with him.
Constantino carries a 39% positive, 50% negative favorability rating, with a smaller proportion of just 12% who were unfamiliar.
Stefanik carries a 43% favorable, 51% unfavorable rating among the voters in her district with 5% reporting they were unfamiliar with her.
Trump carries a 44% favorable, 55% unfavorable rating, while Hochul has a 40% positive, 57% negative rating among the voters in NY-21.
This poll showed that Republicans are having a voter enthusiasm problem; while the pool of respondents for the poll was 41% Republican, 26% Democrat, roughly matching the partisan breakdown of the district according to state Board of Elections data, 11% of those Republicans failed the SurveyUSA “likely voters” screen, indicating they are less likely to vote; 3% said they are likely not going to vote and 8% said they are not sure if they will.
Among the Democratic respondents, only a combined 4% said they won’t or are not sure if they will vote.
“If Constantino and the Republican Party can convert some or all of that 8% into certain votes, the GOP will increase their odds of retaining this seat,” the SurveyUSA release concludes.
The poll was met with serious backlash from Constantino and his campaign and with celebration from Gendebien’s team.
In a statement put out on social media shortly after WNYT published the results, Constantino accused the television station of trying to indirectly swindle money out of donors’ pockets by boosting Gendebien, thereby driving more ad revenue from his campaign.
“This ‘story’ is clear violation of journalistic ethics and example of rampant political corruption as Democrats will use this fake poll and the Channel 13 brand to lie grab money for themselves,” he said in a jumbled post on X, formerly Twitter.
He also trashed the poll for including Schmidt, the independent candidate running a write-in campaign and questioned its finding that Stefanik is seen only three points more favorably than Hochul in the deep-red district that has not historically supported the Democratic governor.
“I am calling on Blake Gendebien to disavow this dishonest poll and return the money that he is taking from citizens using dishonest messaging,” he said.
Gendebien celebrated the results in a statement shared Thursday night.
“We’re ahead because we’re not playing the same old partisan games,” he said. “I’m focused on the issues that cross party lines out here: fuel prices that are squeezing every family, hospitals and clinics disappearing from our communities, and people who are just tired of the fighting in Washington. This campaign isn’t about left versus right, it’s about who’s actually going to show up and fight for Northern New York.”
Clarkson University political science professor Alexander Cohen said the results of this poll look fairly reasonable, but still cautioned that it’s not enough to truly understand the state of the race. Cohen has said that Constantino has some serious advantages in the race, top of which is the larger number of Republicans in the district.
In an email on Friday, Cohen said that Gendebien’s 4% lead sits within the poll’s margin of error or credibility interval, meaning Gendebien is ahead by “somewhere between 0 — 4 points.”
SurveyUSA provides a “credibility interval” for each question, which they describe as a more conservative rating of the survey’s error margins. This includes question wording, survey design and other potential influencing factors. The “who would you vote for” question carries a credibility interval of 4.1 points, meaning each result could be off by as much as that in either direction.
But Cohen said that the results of the poll, especially its finding that Trump is broadly unpopular, track with other poll results.
“Affordability is the largest issue, which also tracks,” he said. “Those numbers should worry Constantino.”
He noted the 34% of voters who reported they were unfamiliar with Gendebien in this poll.
“That 34% is untapped opportunity — if he can raise those numbers and grab at least some of those voters,” Cohen said.
Overall, Cohen said that he’d prefer to see several different independent polls conducted, then take the average of their findings.
“I wouldn’t read too much into this — yet,” he said. “But if more information like this keeps coming out, it could be significantly predictive.”
The SurveyUSA poll was conducted between Aug. 4 and 8, reaching 800 NY-21 residents by web platform, voice call and text-to-web. That number was whittled down to 612 likely voters who were asked the substantive questions on the candidates and other lawmakers.