Reply #52: The polls you cite are before Labor Day.

[HeraldSquare212]

General election political races don't start in NY until after Labor Day, which is when the parties hold their primary elections and, with the summer over, when people start focusing on the races. I'm pretty sure the polls after Labor Day give her a pretty consistent and comfortable lead. Lazio was no pushover - he was ambitious, and if anything he ran statewide a few years too early - but he was not in any sense of the word a serious Republican challenger. She was handed the nomination on the Dem side by a very popular Dem incumbent who was almost an institution in NY politics. And, two years earlier, Chuck Schumer had beat, against long odds, the leader of the Republican party in NY, Al D'Amato. So the Reps were a bit disorganized and the electorate was obviously looking for change. And, don't forget - that was a presidential year, which means there was high turnout by Dems to vote for Gore.

PS When her campaign did its research on Lazio, they realized he had voted on both sides of every issue. They assumed it was a conscious strategy so he could be all things to all people. I suspect they took the lesson.