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Morelle leads Maxwell by 24 points in new poll for the 25th Congressional Dist. race

siena.edu

A poll released Tuesday night in the 25th Congressional District shows a solid lead at this point in the campaign for Democrat Joe Morelle who is facing Republican candidate Dr. Jim Maxwell in November.

The Spectrum News/Siena College poll shows Morelle with a 55-31 percent lead over Maxwell.

Both are vying to succeed the late Louise Slaughter, the longtime Democratic Congresswoman who died earlier this year.

Siena College pollster Steve Greenberg says that, “In this longtime ‘blue’ district, Democrat Morelle has a comfortable 24-point lead over Republican Maxwell.” Greenberg says that Morelle has 81 percent of Democrats, picks up nearly one-quarter of Republicans and leads with independents by 12 points.

The poll also shows that Morelle has two-thirds of voters in Rochester, a two-to-one lead in the eastern portion of the district, and a has a narrow four-point edge in the western part of the district.

The district is located entirely within Monroe County, and includes most of the county except for all or parts of: Hamlin, Clarkson, Wheatland, Rush and Mendon.

Greenberg says that, “Morelle is more well known and viewed more favorably by voters in this district that has nearly 60,000 more enrolled Democrats than Republicans.” He says with 11 weeks until election day Morelle is in a strong position, but the pollster also says, “that said, 77 days is a long time in the current world of politics…” But Greenberg says Maxwell will have his work cut out for him, and will have to overcome the Republican enrollment disadvantage.

Morelle is the New York State Assembly Majority Leader. He was first elected to the State Assembly in 1990. Maxwell is a local neurosurgeon.

Governor Cuomo this week set a special election for November 6th, the same day as the general election, to fill the unexpired term of Louise Slaughter, which runs through December. Both Maxwell and Morelle will run in that election as well.

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.