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The district covers several counties in the central portion of the state, including Sullivan, Greene, and Columbia counties.
Riley holds a five-point lead there over Molinaro, 46 to 41 percent, according to a new Spectrum News/Siena College poll of likely voters.
Among their parties, Riley garnered support from 83 percent of Democrats while 78 percent of Republicans backed Molinaro.
Pollsters found that independents favored Riley over Molinaro by 46 to 40 percent.
When looking at demographics, Molinaro leads with men by eight points while Riley has an 18-point lead with women.
Riley also leads by eight points in the eastern portion of the district and 15 points in the western portion, while Molinaro enjoys a 12-point lead in the central part of the district, pollsters found.
“While Molinaro is more known to voters than Riley, Molinaro is underwater with those voters who have an opinion about him, including being underwater with independents by 17 points,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greeberg.
“Riley’s problem is that a majority of voters have no opinion about him, although he is as positive with Democrats as Molinaro is with Republicans.”
Asked to identify their top two most important issues heading into November, 52 percent said economic issues as one of their top two, with 34 percent naming it as number one.
That was followed by “threats to our democracy” (31 percent top two/20 percent most important), abortion (28 percent/13 percent) national gun policies (21 percent/6 percent), crime (18 percent/6 percent), healthcare, (16 percent/6 percent), education (15 percent/5 percent), and racial justice (7 percent/3 percent).
Climate change and immigration combined were named by one percent.
When broken down by party, three-quarters of Republicans and 58 percent of independents said economic issues were among their top two issues in choosing a candidate.
Meanwhile, 29 percent of Democrats named the economy as top of mind behind abortion (47 percent) and threats to democracy (46 percent), pollsters found.
Crime and gun policy rounded out Republicans’ top three issues, while threats to democracy and education completed the top three issues for independents.
When asked which party they’d like to see control the US House, voters were closely divided, favoring Democrats over Republicans 48-45 percent.
“What is clear is that these next five weeks are going to see a lot of two things: the candidates and their supporters campaigning hard, and ads for and against both candidates dominating airwaves and social media,” Greenberg said.
“It’s close now and there’s every reason to believe it’s going to stay close to the end.”
Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
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