The list of grievances is long: New York City legislators scuttled a plan to grant the University at Buffalo more independence. Tolls on the New York State Thruway are too high. And so on.
This election year, the rift between Greater New York and struggling Upstate cities like this one is especially wide, say voters, politicians and businesspeople. That helped Buffalo multimillionaire developer Carl Paladino beat Rick Lazio, a former congressman from Long Island, in the Republican gubernatorial primary. And Upstate enthusiasm could make Mr. Paladino more of a threat to his Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo—a resident of Mount Kisco, in Westchester County—than he might have been in other years.
Recent polls have shown that Upstate voters are more dissatisfied with the way things are going in the state than those in New York City and its suburbs. A Sept. 1 Quinnipiac University survey found 86% of registered voters upstate were either somewhat or very dissatisfied, compared with 73% of those in the city. Six years ago, just over half of both groups were either somewhat or very dissatisfied…
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