By Marc Humbert
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, March 2, 2000; 5:21 p.m. EST

ALBANY, N.Y. –– Rudolph Giuliani, riding support from white women and Jewish voters, has taken the lead over Hillary Rodham Clinton in their Senate race, a statewide poll reported Thursday.

The latest poll from the Quinnipiac College Polling Institute had the Republican New York City mayor favored by 48 percent of registered voters, with the Democratic first lady backed by 41 percent.

A poll released by Quinnipiac on Feb. 6, the day Clinton formally entered the race, had Giuliani favored by 45 percent of New York voters to 42 percent for the first lady, a statistical tie given that poll's margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Quinnipiac's polls over the past six months have shown the race extremely close, and often the gap between the two has been within those polls' margins of error. Some other statewide polls have shown Giuliani in the lead, but routinely by single digits.

The latest telephone poll of 1,842 registered voters was conducted Feb. 22-28 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

The Giuliani camp said the latest poll results were a reflection of concerns many New Yorkers have about Clinton's move to New York to run for the Senate.

"We New Yorkers can tell the difference between authenticity and a script," said Bruce Teitelbaum, Giuliani's campaign manager. "He's direct, he's real, he's authentic. He's New York."

There was no immediate comment from Clinton, who was scheduled to speak at a fund-raising dinner Thursday night in New York City for Manhattan's Democratic Party organization.

Douglas Schwartz, director of the Hamden, Conn.-based Quinnipiac College Polling Institute, said the mayor had developed solid leads among white women and Jewish voters.

"White women have been a bellwether, voting for the winner in every statewide race in New York since 1990," Schwartz said.

The mayor leads 51 percent to 37 percent among white women and 48 percent to 38 percent among Jewish voters.

The poll director also noted that the mayor's favorability rating among New York voters had reached its highest point since the institute began charting the race in February of last year. In the latest poll, 42 percent of voters had a favorable view of the mayor. Thirty-four percent of voters had a favorable view of Clinton.