ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A new poll finds support among New York voters for allowing Confederate statues and memorials to stay up.

A Siena College poll of registered voters released Wednesday found 59 percent of respondents statewide in favor of keeping the Confederate monuments.

A small majority of Democrats believe Confederate statues or memorials should be removed. But 84 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of independents say they should stay up. Support for keeping the statues up was strongest among upstate respondents.

Communities in the South and elsewhere have been wrestling with the issue of whether to remove statues of Confederate figures.

The statewide telephone poll of 771 New York registered voters was conducted Aug. 26-30 and has an overall margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.

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