Ritchie Torres is Popular With NY-15 Democratic Primary Voters in His District
A new survey from Data for Progress paid for by Protect Our Future finds that among likely Democratic primary voters in New York’s 15th Congressional District, Representative Ritchie Torres is popular with Democratic primary voters in the district.
We find that Rep. Torres has the highest net favorability (+63 points) of all politicians we tested, with 17 percent of likely voters saying they haven’t heard enough to say. President Joe Biden and Senator Chuck Schumer’s net favorables both sit at +58-points. The favorability rating of the Democratic Party is +54-points.
We find that Democratic primary voters approve of Rep. Torres’ performance by a +61-point margin, driven by +65-point and +62-point approval ratings among Black and Latino/a voters, respectively.
Along these lines, we also find by a +51-point margin, likely NY-15 Democratic primary voters think that Rep. Torres has had the right priorities during his time in Congress.
We also asked likely NY-15 Democratic primary voters whether they think Rep. Torres is better representing them or his national donors. We find that by a +40-point margin, these voters believe that Rep. Torres is prioritizing them.
We also asked likely NY-15 Democratic primary voters whether they’d prefer their representative to be more liberal or more conservative than President Biden, or whether they want their representative to share Biden’s values. We find that half of these voters (50 percent) prefer a representative who shares Biden’s values, 33 percent want a more liberal representative, and only 17 percent want a representative more conservative than Biden.
Next, we asked likely NY-15 Democratic primary voters for their views on key issues facing the nation. These voters most frequently cited gun control (28 percent) as the most important issue facing America, followed by the economy (19 percent), the coronavirus pandemic (12 percent), and civil rights (12 percent). Gun control was viewed as especially important among Latino/a voters, while Black voters’ top issue was civil rights.
Finally, we asked likely NY-15 Democratic primary voters whether they support or oppose investing $30 billion to help the U.S. prepare for future pandemics. We find that this is overwhelmingly popular across the board, with a +81-point margin of support.
Broadly, these findings indicate that Rep. Torres is in a very strong position. We also find that Democrats in NY-15 are especially motivated by issues relating to gun control, the economy, the coronavirus pandemic, and civil rights, and they strongly support investments in pandemic preparedness.