Club for Growth Poll: Hoffman Leading in NY-23

In a rather amazing turn of events, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman may have taken the lead in the race for the open House seat in upstate New York:

A poll released today by the Club for Growth shows Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman surging into the lead in the special election in New York's 23rd congressional district to replace John McHugh, the former congressman who recently became Secretary of the Army.

The poll of 300 likely voters, conducted October 24-25, 2009, shows Conservative Doug Hoffman at 31.3%, Democrat Bill Owens at 27.0%, Republican Dede Scozzafava at 19.7%, and 22% undecided. The poll's margin of error is +/- 5.66%. No information was provided about any of the candidates prior to the ballot question.

This is the third poll done for the Club for Growth in the NY-23 special election, and Doug Hoffman is the only candidate to show an increase in his support levels in each successive poll. The momentum in the race is clearly with Hoffman.

"Hoffman now has a wide lead among both Republicans and Independents, while Owens has a wide lead among Democrats. Dede Scozzafava's support continues to collapse, making this essentially a two-candidate race between Hoffman and Owens in the final week," concluded Basswood Research's pollster Jon Lerner, who conducted the poll for the Club.

That's a small sample, so you have to consider that when looking at the poll results. However, a more telling story may be the fact that the Democrats are now targeting Hoffman with their ads rather than Scozzafava. That would certainly indicate that the CFG Poll may be correct.

If Hoffman wins this that will be a pretty amazing result, and a real slap in the kisser for the GOP officials who backed Scozzafava.