Representative Charles Rangel of New York leads his challenger, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, 47 percentage points to 34 points ahead of the Democratic primary on Tuesday, according to a NY1/Siena College poll.
Rangel, who has represented the district in Congress for 22 terms, has seen his lead among likely voters jump to 13 points from a 9-point lead in last month’s Siena poll.
Voters believe, by a nearly two-to-one margin, that Rangel, 84, will emerge victorious in the district, which includes Harlem and parts of the Bronx, the poll released on Thursday found.
In that liberal bastion, the winner of the Democratic primary is all but guaranteed to win the general election in November.
The race is a re-match. In 2012, Rangel defeated Espaillat by fewer than 1,000 votes.
Rangel is an ethically challenged octogenarian who first was elected when Nixon was president. He’s also quite cozy with the Wall Street types that the champions of the poor over in Unicorn Alley so loathe. Just a few days ago, HuffPo gleefully reported that Rangel was “getting hammered” for those ties.
It doesn’t seem to be much of a hammer.
And since when do Democrats ever punish one of their own for being a sleazebag?
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