Poll Tracker

Just 15 percent of voters -- a number that has held steady since May -- said they would elect Paterson to a full term in the office he inherited in 2008, when the former lieutenant governor moved up to fill the vacancy created by the scandal-induced resignation of Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Sixty-eight percent said they would prefer someone besides Paterson.

Hypothetical matchups showed Cuomo trouncing Paterson by a margin of 42 percentage points in a primary and also holding a 50-point lead over former Rep. Rick Lazio, the Republicans' 2000 Senate opponent to Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has indicated he is likely to enter the race for governor. Even Paterson is in a virtual tie against Lazio, leading him by 38 percent to 37 percent in the Siena poll.

Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and contender for the GOP's 2008 presidential nomination, is regarded by many state Republicans as their dream candidate for governor. But Giuliani, though he is polling much stronger than Lazio, still trailed Cuomo by 13 percentage points. Cuomo's 53 percent when matched against Giuliani is a new high.

Giuliani does, however, hold a hefty 23-point lead over Paterson. And the poll showed he would be a huge front-runner for the Republican nomination were he to enter the primary. Giuliani had support from 73 percent of prospective Republican primary voters to 8 percent for Erie County Executive Chris Collins, a possible candidate whose jurisdiction includes the city of Buffalo, and 6 percent for Lazio. Just 13 percent said they were undecided.

Cuomo, who was elected Attorney General in 2006, served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton. Should Cuomo decide to run for governor, he will be trying to follow in the footsteps of his father, Democrat Mario M. Cuomo, whose three-term tenure as governor ran from 1983 to 1995.

Separate polling on the 2010 Senate special election, for the seat Clinton vacated to become secretary of State, shows appointed Democratic incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand still has much work to do in building a statewide political base -- even though she may have eliminated all serious primary competition.

Fifty-two percent of voters said they still no opinion of Gillibrand, who had just begun a second term in an upstate New York House seat when she was appointed to the Senate in January by Paterson. That number actually increased since a poll taken in April, despite Gillibrand's tireless outreach efforts around the state.

More than a third of voters said they would prefer to elect someone else to the Senate post, while just under a quarter said they would vote for Gillibrand. Forty-one percent were undecided.

And Gillibrand trailed former Republican Gov. George E. Pataki in a hypothetical general election contest, 42 percent to 39 percent. Pataki, who was governor from 1995 to 2007, has not ruled out a Senate campaign, but has not made any formal moves towards joining the race.