ALBANY — Eight months out from the November election, Gov. Kathy Hochul holds a sizable 20-point lead over Republican challenger Bruce Blakeman, according to a new poll from the Siena Research Institute.

In a poll conducted from February 23-26 with 805 registered voters, Hochul led Blakeman by a 51-31% margin, with 15% of voters expressing no preference and three percent preferring neither.

Hochul led Blakeman by a 54-28% margin in the January Siena poll.

Hochul’s favorability rating is 46-42% in the poll, dropping from 49-40% in the previous poll.

Blakeman, the Nassau County Executive, is largely unknown to New York voters, with 61% of respondents telling pollsters they had either never heard of him or had no opinion about him.

Blakeman has a 21-18% favorability rating in the poll, up slightly from the 18-20% mark he recorded in the prior poll.

“There are less than 250 days until election day and he has a lot of voters to educate,” Siena pollster Steven Greenberg noted in a statement. “Only two in five voters know enough about him to say whether they view him favorably or unfavorably – and they’re closely divided. The majority, 61%, have either never heard of Blakeman or don’t know enough about him to have an opinion.”

Hochul is seeking her second full term in office this November. Hochul is not expected to face a Democratic primary challenge after Lt. Governor Antonio Delgado dropped out of the race on Feb. 10.

“Democrats still outnumber Republicans more than two-to-one, so it’s not surprising to see Hochul continue to maintain a large double-digit lead over Blakeman, although it’s tightened a little bit in the last month,” Greenberg said. “What was a 25-point lead in December and a 26-point lead in January is now a 20-point lead, largely due to Republicans coming home to Blakeman, and the race tightening among men – Hochul had led by 22 points and now leads by four – and in the downstate suburbs, where she led by 14 points and now leads by two points.”

In the Siena Research Institute poll, Democrats lead Republicans on a generic congressional ballot by 53-32%, with five percent of voters responding that they wouldn’t vote in a congressional race and nine percent responding that they don’t know who they would vote for at this time.