NEW YORK (CNN) – It’s no surprise but a new poll shows President Barack Obama with a strong lead in the solidly blue state of New York.
Fifty-six percent of voters in the state said they would pick Obama, while 31 percent said they would support Mitt Romney, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released last week.
Obama carried New York by a landslide in the 2008 election against Republican Sen. John McCain, winning the state with 63 percent of the vote. The president frequently travels to New York City for fundraising events.
The new poll indicates the Catholic vote in the state is split, 44 percent to 44 percent, between Romney and Obama. The numbers come months after an uproar ignited over an Obama administration policy that would require religiously-affiliated institutions to include contraception coverage in health care plans, a rule that angered several groups within the Catholic Church, as it opposes birth control.
Following the outcry, the administration amended the policy to mandate insurance companies, not the institutions, offer contraception free of charge to women employed by said organizations.
