It's hard to find a single poll this week that generated more press attention from Beltway elites than the survey from Quinnipiac University that indicated New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo leads Tea Party favorite, and political novice, Carl Paladino by just six points (OMG!) in that state's race for governor. And it's probably hard to find a single poll this week that generated less press interest from Beltway elites than a survey released the very next day by Siena College that showed Cuomo leading that same race by a whopping 33 points.

Via Nexis, I get 107 hits when searching “Cuomo and Quinnipiac and poll” for the previous week. But when I search “Cuomo and Siena and poll,” 30 matches appear.

The discrepancy in news coverage doesn't simply stem from the fact that the press instinctively prefers covering close races, as opposed to blowouts. It's that the Quinnipiac poll played right into the media's beloved Dems-in-disarray narrative this fall, so it was hyped to the sky. Indeed, the results arrived as a gift for reporters who seemed thrilled at the prospect of another big-time Democrat falling this November. (Cuomo losing was now a “very real possibility,” the WSJ stressed this week.)

But as I noted on Monday when a GOP-friendly Rasmussen poll for the New York race left off a third-party candidate who would likely affect the outcome of the Cuomo-Paladino race, Quinnipiac did the same thing. And in covering the surprising Quinnipiac poll results this week, most reporters were careful to make no mention of that fact.

They didn't mention that a high-profile Republican, Rick Lazio, a former NY Congressman, would likely appear on the November ballot as the Conservative Party candidate, and that Lazio would likely siphon off votes from Paladino. By erasing Lazio from the race (he was flushed down the memory hole), the press was able to boost Paladino's chances, while hyping the Quinnipiac poll.

By contrast, Siena College did include Lazio in its survey, and it showed Cuomo winning easily.

UPDATED: A new Marist poll out today has Cuomo up 19 points over Paladino. So to review, there were four major polls out this week on the Cuomo/Paladino race.

Siena: Cuomo + 33

Marist: Cuomo +19

Rasmussen: Cuomo +16

Quinnipiac: Cuomo + 6

Guess which poll got the most media attention?