Dueling internal polls show starkly different outcomes in NY-21 race

By Alexandra Jaffe - 10/03/12 06:01 PM ET

Dueling internal polls of the race for New York's 21st District paint starkly opposing pictures, with an internal poll from Republican Matt Doheny putting him within single digits of overtaking the incumbent, Rep. Bill Owens (D), but a poll from Owens' campaign gives him a 14-point lead on Doheny.

Doheny's poll, which was shared with The Hill, gives Owens 45 percent support and Doheny 40 percent support among likely voters in the district.

And 35 percent of those polled say Owens should be reelected, a number that the polling memo says indicates that Owens is "clearly a vulnerable incumbent."

But the poll from Owens' campaign, also shared with The Hill, offers a distinctly different race, giving him 50 percent support to Doheny's 36 percent support.

Redistricting did throw the lawmaker into a slightly more difficult scenario for reelection, as he's had to introduce himself to a large number of new constituents and the 21st would have broken for President Obama at a much smaller margin than his original district, the 23rd.

But the most recent independent poll of the race, out from Siena College in early September, gave Owens a 13-percentage-point lead on Doheny, and The Hill ranks this race as leans Democratic.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee both ran ads in the district in mid-to-late September, but neither has yet launched an extensive attack in the race.

Doheny's poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies for the National Republican Congressional Committee and Doheny's campaign. It surveyed 400 likely voters in the district from Oct. 1-2 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Owens' poll was conducted by Global Strategy Group, which surveyed 400 likely voters in the district from Sept.30-Oct. 1 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.