Art Feud Hurting, Helping Giuliani

Rudolph W. Giuliani has been hurt by his battle with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, narrowing the gap between him and potential Senate rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to a poll released Thursday.

But the New York City mayor’s standing improved among the state’s largest voting group, white Catholics, in the wake of the museum showdown, according to the poll.

The poll from Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion found the mayor favored by 46% of the state’s voters while 42% backed Mrs. Clinton, a statistical dead heat based on the poll’s margin of error of 4 percentage points. Other polls have also shown them about even.

A Marist poll last month had Giuliani leading the first lady, 49% to 40%.

Thirty percent of those polled this time said they think less of Giuliani since the flap over the Brooklyn museum’s exhibit “Sensation” began. Twenty-one percent said they think more of him because of the way he handled the situation.

The show includes a black Virgin Mary surrounded by naked body parts and plastered with dried elephant dung. The mayor has said he wants to cut off city funding for the museum because of the exhibit.