Metro

State Dems shaking off scandals in polls

ALBANY — Scandal hasn’t turned New Yorkers off to putting Democrats back in control of the state Senate.

A new poll finds 55 percent of voters would rather have the party of Pedro Espada, Hiram Monserrate and Shirley Huntley running the Senate again, while 36 percent want to keep it in Republican hands.

Espada and Monserrate are gone, both convicted of crimes.

Huntley lost a primary last month after being charged with falsifying documents to conceal payments to her niece and aide from a sham charity she created.

They helped run the Senate in 2009 and 2010 with fellow Democrats Carl Kruger, now in prison for bribery, and Kevin Parker, sentenced to probation, anger-management classes and restitution after assaulting a Post photographer in 2009.

And former and current Senate Democratic leaders Malcolm Smith and John Sampson, along with Sen. Eric Adams, were accused by the state inspector general in 2010 of favoritism, cronyism and political self-dealing in the doomed selection of a casino operator for Aqueduct Race Track.

The Siena College poll’s findings come as Republicans fight to hold their 33-29 majority.

Earlier Siena polls found tight races between Democratic incumbent Joe Addabbo Jr. and Republican City Councilman Eric Ulrich in Queens, GOP businessman Bob Cohen and Democratic Assemblyman George Latimer in Westchester, and Republican Assemblyman Sean Hanna and Democrat Ted O’Brien in Rochester.

Senate Republicans have poured nearly $4.9 million into those and other races to nearly $1.4 million by Democrats since the September primaries, new campaign reports show.

Senate Democratic spokesman Mike Murphy said Siena’s poll results show New Yorkers agree with Democrats about “raising the minimum wage, supporting affordable health care, protecting women’s health, standing up for pay equity [and] enacting common- sense gun control.”

But Senate GOP spokesman Scott Reif said New Yorkers “want Senate Republicans to continue to work with Gov. Cuomo to control spending and taxes, help businesses create new jobs and move this state forward.”

In fact, New Yorkers view the current, Republican-led Senate favorably, by 45-42 percent, Siena’s Oct. 22-24 telephone survey of 750 likely voters found.