Another update from the 26th Congressional district race between Democratic challenger Jack Davis and the Republican Tom Reynolds. The Buffalo News reports that:

Democrat Jack Davis has opened a significant lead over Republican incumbent Thomas M. Reynolds in a congressional contest fueled by Reynolds’ association with the Mark Foley sex scandal.

Davis leads Reynolds 48 percent to 33 percent in a new Zogby International poll conducted for The Buffalo News, prompting pollster John Zogby to conclude that Davis poses a genuine threat to the longtime powerhouse from Clarence.

“There is no other way to look at these numbers except to say Tom Reynolds is in trouble,” the Utica-based Zogby said.

The poll surveyed 402 likely voters in the 26th Congressional District on Wednesday and Thursday (with a margin for error of plus or minus 5 percentage points). It showed that 325 respondents were following the Foley story, with 57 percent disapproving the way Reynolds handled the situation after he found out last spring Foley had sent an e-mail that made a former page uncomfortable. And then 10 days ago, it was revealed that Foley had sent sexually explicit instant messages to other former pages.

Only 25 percent of the poll respondents said they approved of how Reynolds handled the situation.

Remember that this race was close before the Foley issue broke. Davis was pounding Reynolds on one central issue: trade and, particularly, the damage caused to the district’s economic base by so-called “free trade” and specifically NAFTA. If Reynolds does lose, I suspect most media analysts will likely focus on the Foley situation rather than trade. Unfortuntely.