The epic Democratic primary fight between veteran New York Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler is a toss-up, according to a new internal poll from challenger Suraj Patel — that shows him surging.
The survey released by the Patel campaign Monday shows septuagenarians Maloney and Nadler tied with 31% of the vote apiece. Patel’s support, meanwhile, rose to 25% from 19% in June, with 13% of Democrats still undecided ahead of the Aug. 23 primary.
The Democrats’ gerrymandering debacle ended up pitting Maloney and Nadler — longtime allies who’ve served in the House of Representatives together since 1993 — against each other.
Judges knocked out the Democratic-drawn maps — which Republicans derided as the “Hochulmander” because Gov. Kathy Hochul approved them — finding them unconstitutional.
As a result, a court-ordered special master merged Maloney’s East Side turf with Nadler’s West Side base, creating a battle royale in the new 12th congressional district.
The Patel campaign survey was conducted by Whitman Insight Strategies, whose founders have polled for former Mayor Mike Bloomberg and ex-President Bill Clinton.
The poll clearly shows Maloney and Nadler jockeying for voters aged 65 and over, who tend to cast ballots in higher numbers than younger voters.
Patel, an Indian-American lawyer and businessman, is leading with voters under age 50, according to the survey. His support jumped to 25% from 19% in a previous campaign poll conducted in early June.
“That’s a huge number of voters. The momentum is on our side. There’s an incredible hunger for change,” Patel told The Post.
Patel twice previously ran and lost in primaries to Maloney, though only narrowly two years ago after a count of thousands of absentee ballots.
“The polling continues to support our case of the race. The incumbents are fighting for, and splitting, the same voters – leaving a plurality of voters who do not believe either deserves re-election,” Whitman Insight Strategies said in a polling memo.
“In June, we found that 42% of Democratic primary voters are not committed to voting to re-elect either incumbent. This new tracking survey finds the exact same percent of voters (42%) remain open to turning the page,” the memo said.
The poll of 300 likely Democratic voters was conducted from July 23-27 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.
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