Democrats’ Poll Puts Grimm Up by Double Digits Over Donovan
Dems ‘desperate’ for Grimm because he has ‘zero shot of winning in November,’ incumbent says

A new Democratic poll of voters in the Republican primary for Rep. Dan Donovan’s seat shows challenger Michael Grimm up by 10 points, but the incumbent says that’s what they’d like you to believe.
Grimm led Donovan, 49 percent to 39 percent, among GOP voters in New York’s 11th District in the poll released by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House Democrats’ political arm, which hopes to flip the seat blue in November.
Donovan’s campaign dismissed the results as shaded with bias.
“Of course the DCCC is desperate for Michael Grimm because they know he has zero shot of winning in November,” campaign spokeswoman Jessica Proud told the New York Daily News.
But the results are “consistent with our own internal analysis,” Grimm told the NYDN over the weekend.
Pollsters surveyed 404 likely 2018 Republican primary voters through live phone calls from April 9 to April 11. The margin of error is 4.9 percent.
Grimm resigned from office in 2015 after being indicted for tax evasion, hiring undocumented workers, and perjury under oath.
He won a 2014 re-election bid even though the indictment he faced was well-known.
Those charges led to an eight-month stay in federal prison for tax fraud after Grimm admitted he had hidden more than $900,000 in receipts at his Manhattan restaurant, Healthalicious. He was released in May 2016.
Grimm has established himself as the insurgent in the race, ready to reclaim his former seat with an aggressive campaign tone.
Former White House chief political strategist Steve Bannon endorsed him in October.
Whoever emerges from the June primary should be favored in the general election in November. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Likely Republican. The DCCC named Army veteran Max Rose to its Red to Blue program for top recruits earlier this year.
President Donald Trump carried the district by 10 points in 2016, while Donovan won a first full term by nearly 15 points.
The highly anticipated primary for the Staten Island seat is slated for June 26.