ALBANY — A battle between equals this is not.
With David Paterson now a self-certified lame duck, Andrew Cuomo enters a two-man race for governor as the overwhelming favorite against lightly regarded Republican Rick Lazio.
As Paterson careened from one crisis to another, Cuomo built twin stockpiles of campaign cash and political good will.
The first-term state attorney general boasts not only a famed political surname but a string of populist victories over Wall Street and other moneyed interests.
Lazio, meanwhile, has struggled to raise enough funds to fuel his first campaign since then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton trounced him in the 2000 US Senate race.
“It’s Muhammad Ali versus Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder,” Baruch College political science professor Doug Muzzio added. “I’m betting on Ali.”
The public has been betting on Cuomo for months.
His 66 percent favorability rating in a Siena poll this week made Cuomo the most popular statewide official.
In contrast, only 31 percent of voters held a favorable view of Lazio, while another 43 percent said they didn’t know enough about the former Long Island congressman.
Lazio continues to lag far behind Cuomo in a head-to-head matchup — 26 percent to 63 percent — although he’s gained a few points in recent weeks.
The attorney general’s campaign had $16.1 million on hand, compared with Lazio’s $637,357, as of the most recent filing in January.
If Lazio has any hope for an upset, it lies in the wave of anti-incumbency sweeping the nation.
“That’s his best chance — that’s his only chance,” Marist pollster Lee Miringoff said. “In what may otherwise not be a blockbuster Democratic year, [Cuomo] has a very wide lead on the morning line.”