Poll: Hoffman Leads Owens In NY-23

The new survey of the NY-23 special election from Public Policy Polling (D) finds Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman with a solid lead over Democrat Bill Owens, in a race that has seen a topsy-turvy weekend as moderate GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava dropped out and endorsed Owens.

The numbers: Hoffman 51%, Owens 34%, and Scozzafava (whose name remains on the ballot) 13%, with a ±2.3% margin of error. In a strict two-way matchup, Hoffman leads Owens by 54%-38%.

One caveat: Special elections are notoriously hard to poll -- especially a race as crazy as this one -- and this survey does have some inconsistencies from others. For example, only 39% of its likely voter pool approves of President Obama, with 52% disapproving. By contrast, the Siena poll gave Obama a favorable rating of 59%-37%. (True, "approval" and "favorable" are two different questions, but even then they shouldn't have answers that are this different.)

So which numbers should be believed? The simple answer is that we don't know. Either one of them could be right, or both could be wrong. We'll find out soon enough, on Tuesday night.