Hydrofracking gains ground in poll of likely voters

Support for hydraulic fracturing in New York inched up in the last two months, according to the latest polling from the Siena (College) Research Institute (SRI).

A new SRI survey released this morning found that 42 percent of the state’s registered voters want the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to allow hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, to extract natural gas in Upstate areas. That’s up from 39 percent who stood behind hydrofracking in August.

Opposition to the drilling procedure slipped. This month 36 percent of registered voters said they were against hydrofracking, down from 38 percent in August.

“While it’s not a groundswell of support, more voters now support DEC moving forward on hydrofracking than in any previous Siena poll,” SRI pollster Steven Greenberg said in a news release. “In August, a plurality of upstate voters and women had opposed fracking, and now small pluralities of both are in support. Democrats in opposition and independents in support are more closely divided than are Republicans, who overwhelmingly support fracking by a 60-23 percent margin.”

SRI’s poll of New York’s likely voters also found that U.S. President Barack Obama leads his Republican Challenger, Mitt Romney, 59 percent to 35 percent. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand leads her own Republican challenger, Wendy Long, 67 percent to 24 percent, it showed.

The research institute made random calls to 750 landline and cellular telephones between Oct. 22 and Oct. 24 to conduct its survey. SRI statistically adjusted data by age, party, historic turnout, and gender. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com