Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is statistically tied with Rep. Carolyn Maloney when matched up in a Democratic primary in 2010, according to a Marist poll conducted June 23-29.

Should she get past Maloney, Gillibrand leads two Republicans matched-up with her in the poll, but the one over whom she has the most comfortable lead - Rep. Peter King - has signaled he would not make the race because of the huge amounts of campaign money he would have to raise.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand trails Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a likely primary rival, 23 percent to 27 percent, in a new Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey that suggests that contest could be anybody's race.

Of the registered Democrats who responded to the poll, 44 percent called themselves undecided.

Labor activist Jonathan Tasini was barely on the boards, as the favorite of 4 percent of respondants.

New York voters seem to be taking time to make up their minds about their appointed senator, Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand.

Fully 43 percent of respondents in the latest Marist poll couldn't rate her job performance, while 19 percent said she was doing an excellent or good job and 38 percent said she was performing either fair or poor in her new office.

In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, Gillibrand trailed former Republican Gov. George Pataki -- of the 1,029 registered voters surveyed on April 28 and 29, 38 percent preferred Gillibrand while 46 percent favored Pataki. When pollsters asked the same question in March, the outcome was 45 percent for Gillibrand and 41 percent for Pataki.

The 2010 outlook still looks murky for New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand who was named by Gov. David Paterson to fill the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton. She is still so unknown, as are her potential Democratic and Republican challengers, that it is hard to read much into the potential match-ups and favorability numbers in the latest Quinnipiac University poll conducted April 1-5.

Sixty-four percent of voters said they don't know enough about Gillibrand to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of her, and that's true for 53 percent upstate where her former congressional seat was located. Sixty-eight percent have not heard enough about Long Island Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, a potential Democratic challenger, to have an opinion of her. And 67 percent say the same about Republican Rep. Peter King.

McCarthy leads Gillibrand 33 percent to 29 percent among Democratic voters if the two faced each other in a primary, with 33 percent undecided. (The margin of error is 3.8 points). In a general election match-up, Gillibrand leads King 40 percent to 28 percent with 28 percent undecided.

The approval rating for New York Gov. David Paterson, who is up for re-election in 2010, has sunk to the lowest level ever recorded during the nearly 30 years that the Marist Institute has been tracking the state's chief executives.

Only 26 percent of registered voters say Paterson is doing an excellent or good job in a Marist survey conducted Feb. 25-26. The percentage rating his performance as excellent was 2 percent. The overall approval rating represented a 20-point drop since late January. Forty-three percent say Paterson's performance is "fair" and 28 percent rate it "poor."

While 77 percent of voters say Paterson is working hard as governor and 62 percent say he understands the problems facing the state, more than half do not think he is a good leader or changing things in Albany for the better.

The fallout from the Caroline Kennedy-for-Senate saga in New York continues. Quinnipiac University poll conducted Feb. 10-15. New York Gov. David Paterson took a hit from his handling of the appointment to the seat vacated by Hillary Clinton with his job approval rating falling from a 50 percent to 30 percent positive approval ratio late last month to 45 percent to 41 percent. Voters disapproved of the way he handled the Senate matter by 52 percent to 35 percent.

Quinnipiac also found that the candidate Paterson spurned in choosing upstate Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand - Attorney General Andrew Cuomo - would be preferred by Democrats 55 percent to 23 percent in a 2010 Democratic primary for governor. Cuomo's favorable to unfavorable numbers are 63 percent to 15 percent while Paterson's are 41 percent to 35 percent.

The Caroline Kennedy mix-up still haunts Gov. David Paterson," said Quinnipiac's Maurice Carroll. "In numbers which could tempt Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to take another shot at Governor, Paterson trails Cuomo 2 - 1 among Democratic voters and scratches out a tie with (former New York City) Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the general election."