A Republican internal poll puts New York Attorney General Letitia James ahead of GOP challenger Saritha Komatireddy by just six points after their debate, with the challenger’s team claiming late momentum.
The OnMessage Inc. survey of 1,000 New York likely voters, conducted October 12, 14 and obtained by the New York Post, shows James at 50.7% and Komatireddy at 44.7%, with about 4% undecided. The margin of error is 2.8 percentage points.
That is a much tighter race than the Siena University survey from last month, which had James up by 13 points. The new numbers land in the final stretch of a contest many once treated as settled in deep-blue New York.
OnMessage, the GOP campaign’s pollster, tied the shift in large part to the October 8 debate. One in five likely voters surveyed said they watched it. Among those who did, Komatireddy led 81% to 19%. Among those who did not, James led 59% to 36%.
An Oct. 15 memo from the firm framed the remaining weeks in blunt terms.
OnMessage Inc. wrote in its memo:
"Letitia James sits at 50.7% with her negatives rising; Saritha Komatireddy is at 44.7% with a +15 net image."
The same memo pressed a simple closing strategy.
"The final three weeks are about one thing: putting Saritha in front of the voters who have not seen her yet, because the ones who saw her debate are breaking to her by four to one."
Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor in Brooklyn’s Eastern District of New York, handled cases involving international terrorism, cybercrime, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, and public corruption. Her campaign has sold that record as straight-line law enforcement rather than partisan theater.
Saritha for New York campaign manager Isabelle Daigle pointed to a surge after what she called an overwhelming debate win, a night already covered as a dominant showing against James by the Republican challenger.
Daigle told the Post the race is drawing unusual crossover interest.
"We’re seeing Democrats and independents joining with Republicans all across the state because of Saritha’s no-nonsense, apolitical approach to crime, homelessness, and fraud."
She added that the campaign’s own numbers show “extraordinary momentum” heading into the final two weeks, while conceding the team must still “work twice as hard” to earn votes across the state over the next 15 days.
Independent voters appear to be part of that story. In May, James was a net plus-3 with them, 40% favorable to 37% unfavorable. In the new survey she sits 11 points underwater with non-party-affiliated voters, 40% favorable to 51% unfavorable. Komatireddy now leads among independents 49% to 43%.
The geographic split is stark. James still crushes New York City, 65% to 30%. Outside the five boroughs, the race flips.
Komatireddy leads Long Island 57% to 41%, the broader downstate suburbs 54% to 44%, and upstate 50% to 44%. She also leads among men 53% to 43%, non-college voters 50% to 45%, and voters ages 46 to 55 by 51% to 46%. The memo did not give James’s margin among women.
Polling analyst Nate Silver rated OnMessage an A for accuracy during the 2024 cycle, a mark the campaign is happy to advertise as voters weigh a late close.
Public polling had already hinted at erosion. A Fox News account of Siena’s tracking showed James’s lead over Komatireddy falling five points from August to September, down to 52% to 39%, even as roughly two-thirds of likely voters still said they did not know enough about the Republican to form an opinion.
Name recognition remains the central barrier, and the central opportunity. James won a second term in 2022 by nine points over underfunded Republican Michael Henry. This time the challenger is better known after the debate and is running as a prosecutor first.
James built a national profile by filing suits against the Trump administration, including action over what was described as $1.4 billion tied to the cancellation of four offshore wind projects, and by prosecuting Trump and his company for fraudulent practices. She also commissioned the sexual misconduct probe of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo that preceded his 2021 resignation; Cuomo denied wrongdoing.
That high-profile posture now collides with a narrower re-election math. James has also drawn separate fire in a Cornell rape-probe bias fight that has kept her judgment under scrutiny on another front.
Her campaign’s response to the OnMessage numbers was pure offense. A James spokeswoman told the Post on Sunday that Komatireddy would not protect New Yorkers.
"Saritha Komatireddy wouldn’t protect New Yorkers from fraudsters or the federal government, because they’re the ones propping up her candidacy."
The same spokeswoman went further on the former president.
"Trump endorsed her, and she’d repay him by looking the other way while he sows chaos in New York."
Trump’s endorsement of Komatireddy is already part of the race’s backbone, and the James campaign is using it as a loyalty test rather than a debate over prosecutorial priorities.
The Free Beacon has described the contest as newly competitive after Komatireddy’s strong televised debate against an incumbent who looked flat-footed, while arguing that crime, homelessness, and fraud have climbed across James’s eight years in office, the same failures the Republican is putting at the center of her pitch.
OnMessage’s memo returned to the same hinge: voters who see the challenger move; voters who do not default to the incumbent.
"That gap is the whole campaign in one number: the undecided and soft voters who see Saritha make the case against James move to her, and the ones who have not seen it stay with the incumbent simply by default."
The firm’s closer was about resources, not vibes: “This is where a well-funded closing message makes the difference.”
Daigle’s public line matches the memo’s private one. The campaign wants Komatireddy in front of the large share of voters who still have not seen her make the case. James wants the race to stay a referendum on Trump and on who “props up” the Republican.
Separate pressure continues elsewhere, including fresh demands that James step aside from the Cornell assault probe over prior remarks, another reminder that her brand of politics now follows her into every fight.
For years James treated the attorney general’s office as a platform for national progressive battles. Komatireddy is betting New Yorkers will take a former federal prosecutor who talks about crime, fraud, and street disorder without the cable-news soundtrack.
The OnMessage survey does not hand the Republican the race. Six points is still a lead for the incumbent, and New York City remains a wall. But a double-digit cushion became a single-digit race after one debate, and the voters who watched that debate did not split evenly.
In a state long accustomed to Democratic lockholds on statewide law-enforcement offices, a six-point race with rising negatives on the incumbent is not noise. It is a warning that record and results still matter when voters finally get a clear look at the alternative.