A new statewide poll says Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead over potential Republican opponent Jeanine Pirro has slipped but still remains strong.
The WNBC-Marist College poll had Clinton leading the Westchester County district attorney 50 percent to 28 percent. Clinton led Pirro 64 percent to 28 percent in an April poll from Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie.
The new poll was conducted Tuesday, one day after Pirro announced she would seek the GOP Senate nomination.
A majority of New York voters, 56 percent of them, said they didn't know enough about Pirro to form an opinion about her.
Only 35 percent of voters said they wanted Clinton to run for president in 2008.
Marist's telephone poll of 400 registered voters has a sampling error margin of plus or minus five percentage points.
McAuliffe: Hillary May Drop Out
Former Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe is reportedly predicting that 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton will drop out of her 2006 Senate reelection race if a challenger like Jeanine Pirro forces her to spend campaign cash earmarked for her presidential race.
"I had a conversation with Terry McAuliffe during the Republican convention," former top Clinton campaign advisor Dick Morris told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes" Wednesday night.
And I said, 'Do you think Hillary runs for re-election to the Senate if she has a tough race?'"
According to Morris, McAuliffe replied: "No, why should she squander $30 million getting reelected to a job she doesn't want?"
Morris was reacting to the first statewide poll taken since Mrs. Pirro announced her candidacy, which shows support for Mrs. Clinton plummeting by 14 percent.
A Marist College survey released Wednesday showed 50 percent of New Yorkers backing Mrs. Clinton over Pirro - a 14-point drop since Marist polled the two candidates in April.
The poll also shows that most New Yorkers do not want Hillary to run for President. Morris says Pirro will make that a central issue of her campaign.
Already Pirro has asked Hillary to take a pledge to New York voters that she won't use her re-election to the Senate as a stepping stone for a presidential run.
Morris said the key to defeating Hillary is for the telegenic Republican to raise early money.
"If [Pirro] can raise $3 or $4 or $5 million this month and next month and have a strong media buy in upstate New York and close that gap," he told "Hannity & Colmes" - "and Bill and Hillary are looking at polls that show [they're only] 7 or 8 points ahead of Jeanine - and they really are looking at Hillary being under 50 [percent], I bet you that Hillary withdraws from this race."
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