However, that's often not the point. If you are progressive (conservative) there is a strong incentive to challenge incumbents on your own side because any impact you have on the ideas discussed is likely to work in your favor; and indeed it's possible the incumbent agrees with you on those issues but just wants political cover to acquiesce. So I'm not really troubled if Cuomo happens to discover a more progressive streak or makes some concessions even though he's going to pulverize her come polling day.
I think it would be accurate to say that Nixon has run an unusually strong campaign and done an unusually good job of calling attention to real issues, even knowing she has no chance of winning and isn't a serious candidate by that standard.
[Note: I am not a resident of NY State and can't legally vote in the state I live in.]
I mean Joe Crowley would have probably been 40 points ahead if that race had been polled. I realize it's not the same, but state polls in midterm primaries must have an enormous margin of error.
TLDR:
- Pollsters often use party allegiance to sanity check their results, but that's irrelevant in a primary
- No one really pays attention to a primary early on (unlike presidential campaigns, which start earlier and earlier every cycle), so early polling is not representative of final voting
- Pollsters have to guesstimate how many voters of a certain type will show up at the polls, but nonpresidential primaries are super low turnout historically especially in noncompetitive areas, and some disgruntled voters for insurgent campaigns can upset this prediction
- Pollsters have a hard time reaching young people and minorities, who are usually not on landlines and are less likely pick up numbers from strangers
She hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning this primary.