Steep climb for GOP in state Senate

A couple of recent polls are highlighting the challenges for Republicans hoping to retake their traditional majority in the state Senate.

The GOP has been handed plenty of openings: a clumsy freshman year for Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith; rebellions within the Democratic caucus; the drag of an unpopular Dem governor; soaring property taxes…some fairly spectacular scandals and criminal probes.

The Democrats have also waded into wedge-issue territory by pushing a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage. That might have been expected to dislodge some social-conservative Dems.

But polls show that only around 35% of New Yorkers want Republicans to regain control of the state Senate.

Even independent voters break for the Dems on a 55-33% split, according to Siena.

A Quinippiac poll released a couple of weeks ago found much the same, with 55% of New Yorkers preferring that Dems hold power in the Senate.

The numbers indicate that Democratic leaders have won astonishing loyalty (topping 90%) from core voters; and they’ve also managed to hold more than 50% of Independents.

(According to Quinippiac, twice as many Republicans prefer that the Dems hold power, when compared with Dems wanting a GOP takeover.)

If Republicans aren’t careful, they may hit a point-of-no-return after 2010.

By most accounts, the state Senate’s district boundaries were gerrymandered aggressively to protect a lot of GOP seats.

After the next Census, if Democrats still control Albany and hold a decisive voter-enrollment advantage, they could very well go in for a little gerrymandering of their own.

If that happens, a Republican implosion is possible.

It’s unlikely that Senators Joe Griffo and Betty Little would be dislodged, but they could well find themselves part of a crippled caucus.