On the eve of New York's Democratic primary, poll shows Clinton and Spitzer with huge leads

(AP) On the eve of New York's Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Eliot Spitzer hold commanding leads in their respective bids for re-election and to replace Republican George Pataki as governor, a statewide poll reported Monday.

The poll from Quinnipiac University's Polling Institute also found former federal Housing Secretary Andrew Cuomo, the elder son of former Gov. Mario Cuomo, well ahead of his rivals in his bid to win the Democratic nomination for attorney general and continue his comeback quest for a political career of his own. The younger Cuomo ran a highly unsuccessful campaign for the party's 2002 nomination for governor.

In New York, primary polls will be open Tuesday from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. in New York City, on Long Island and in Erie, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties. The polls are open from noon to 9 p.m. in the remainder of the state.

Quinnipiac's poll had Cuomo leading former New York City Public Advocate Mark Green 50 percent to 31 percent among likely primary voters, with former Clinton White House aide Sean Patrick Maloney at 7 percent.

Clinton and Spitzer were in far stronger positions, the poll found.

Clinton led anti-Iraq war activist Jonathan Tasini 85 percent to 9 percent while Spitzer led Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi 79 percent to 12 percent.

"The contest between Andrew Cuomo and Mark Green for attorney general is the only race even close to close in tomorrow's Democratic primary," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Hamden, Conn.-based polling institute.

Other pre-primary polls released late last week also had Clinton, Spitzer and Cuomo with similar leads over their Democratic primary opponents.

The release of the poll came as the statewide candidates suspended their active campaigning Monday in deference to the anniversary celebrations of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers and killed about 3,000 people.

The Quinnipiac pollsters did not survey likely Republican primary voters. The only statewide GOP primary is for the Senate nomination to challenge the winner of the Clinton-Tasini contest. Earlier polls have shown former Yonkers Mayor John Spencer leading Reagan-era Pentagon official Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland in the GOP contest.

The winner of the Spitzer-Suozzi primary faces Republican John Faso in November. Faso, a former state Assembly minority leader who narrowly lost a race for state comptroller in 2002, has no primary challenger. Pataki announced more than a year ago that he would not run for a fourth, four-year term.

Other polls have found Clinton and Spitzer well ahead of the GOP opposition and Cuomo or Green leading the unopposed GOP attorney general candidate, former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro.

While there are about 5.5 million enrolled Democrats and 3.1 million Republicans in New York, far fewer than that turn out for primaries. Traditionally, when there are no close top-of-the-ticket primaries for governor or senator, voter turnout runs at 20 percent or less.

Quinnipiac's telephone poll of 1,556 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted Sept. 5-10 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 5 percentage points.