Poll Tracker

Lazio on Wednesday gave the latest indication that he serious about running, unveiling a campaign team that includes campaign manager Kevin Fullington, a former aide to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; strategist Arthur Finkelstein, a prominent New York Republican consultant; and senior adviser Beth Myers, who was chief of staff to Republican Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts and managed his campaign for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination.

Yet the poll numbers hardly amount to a resounding welcome to the race for Lazio, who represented a U.S. House district on Long Island for the eight years prior to his 2000 Senate defeat at the hands of Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Lazio lost that race by 55 percent to 43 percent even though Clinton faced "carpetbagger" allegations and controversy over the fact that she was running for the Senate while her husband, Bill Clinton, was still serving as president.

The Republicans' ambivalence about a Lazio campaign is unlikely to be shaken by the poll's hypothetical matchups against prospective Democratic opponents. Marist finds that state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would wallop Lazio by 71 percent to 21 percent, confirming earlier polling by Siena College. Cuomo even nudged out Lazio among GOP voters.

Lazio was essentially tied with Paterson, even though the incumbent's approval ratings have plunged -- to 20 percent in the Marist poll -- since he moved up from lieutenant governor in March 2008 to fill the vacancy created when Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer admittedly to sexual misconduct and resigned.

New York's weakened financial state certainly isn't helping matters, as approximately two-thirds of the respondents disapproved of Paterson's handling of the recession-plagued economy and the state's budget crisis.

Just 27 percent of voters think Paterson should run for a full term as governor in 2010, the lowest of any politician Marist polled. Sixty-five percent of Democrats don't want him to run.

Cuomo -- a former U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development and son of former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo -- registers the highest level of backing: 67 percent of voters want him to run, including 77 percent of Democrats, 53 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of independents.

Cuomo has said he won't make a decision about his political future until next year, but with that level of popular support, it may be hard for him to turn down a campaign for the state's top job.

The Marist poll confirms previous polling that shows Cuomo easily defeating Paterson in a hypothetical Democratic primary - by 70 percent to 23 percent - and Giuliani doing the same against Lazio on the GOP side, by 83 percent to 13 percent.

Cuomo leads Giuliani by 10 percentage points in a general election match-up of the two heavy hitters, enjoying a big edge among Democrats, who vastly outnumber Republicans in the state, and a bare majority of independents.