More than three-quarters of New Yorkers would like their state legislators to face term limits, a new poll found. The poll – which was financed by New Yorkers for Term Limits, a group created to advance the idea of term limits – found that 77% of New Yorkers support the idea of “placing term limits on members of the State Legislature and the governor so they can not serve any longer than eight consecutive years in the same office.”

Only 19% of New Yorkers said they somewhat or strongly oppose eight year term limits.

While most lawmakers, government watchdog groups, and even the people responsible for the new poll say it would be difficult to convince lawmakers in Albany to limit the amount of time they can serve in the Legislature, most say New Yorkers’ support for term limits speaks to a general sense of dissatisfaction with the state’s government.

The executive director of New Yorkers for Term Limits, Allen Roth, acknowledged that convincing Albany to adopt term limits would not be an easy battle but said, “When you get the startings of a democratic revolution in a state, that is the time when you start to push. We intend to do that.”

He pointed to the responses to the other poll questions, which asked the 600 respondents about their impressions of Albany, as evidence of the initial stages of a revolution. Just over half said the state is headed “off on the wrong track,” and a question that asked whether they are in favor or opposed to changing government in Albany found that 64% favor change while 22% oppose it.

Mr. Roth said term limits increase the likelihood that elected officials are beholden to the voters and not as likely to act in their own self-interest, adding, “There should be some competition. We believe that competition is better than monopoly.”

The executive director of Common Cause New York, Rachel Leon, said, “It’s clear that New Yorkers are frustrated with politicians.”

She said voters “want things to change. They want to see a shakeup.”

As for setting a ceiling on the number of years Albany legislators can serve, Ms. Leon said, “The verdict’s still out on term limits. It’s an appealing concept, but there are negatives and positives.”

Among the negatives, she said, are the loss of effective lawmakers and the reduction of the legislature’s ability to act as a powerful force against the executive. She said, however, that after the implementation of term limits on the New York City Council, the council has become more diverse and elections seem more competitive.

The legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, Blair Horner, said, “The public is always looking for an easy answer to difficult problems, and in this case, the problem is, I assume, they’re reacting to the overall inability to take out incumbents in the last 24 years.” He said that in state Senate and Assembly elections in the last two dozen years, challengers have defeated incumbents in only 34 out of about 2,500 races.

Mr. Horner said it would be “daunting if not impossible” to pass a constitutional amendment creating term limits. It would require two separately elected legislatures to pass a term limits law.

New Yorkers for Term Limits is not new to New York’s political scene. After the businessman and former Reagan administration official Ronald Lauder created it a dozen years ago, it successfully collected more than 130,000 signatures from New York City citizens who favored the idea, placing a referendum on the ballot, which asked voters if they would like to “limit all elected officials in New York City to two consecutive terms in office.” New Yorkers passed the ballot item with a vote of 54% to 41%. There’s no provision for similar citizen-driven ballot initiatives under state law.

In 1996, when the City Council tried to amend the term-limits law, the group gathered signatures again and there was another referendum, in which New Yorkers again endorsed term-limits for city officials.

The task ahead – convincing lawmakers who have been in Albany for decades – is not as simple.

State Senator John Marchi, for example, has been serving in the State Senate since 1957, the year before Fidel Castro seized control of Cuba.

Mr. Marchi, a Republican of Staten Island, was recently recognized by the National Conference of State Legislatures as the longest-serving legislator in America at any level of government.

Mr. Marchi’s press adviser, Jerry McLaughlin, said the senator has been opposed to term limits “for a long time.”

“He thinks the state benefits from the experience of people who have had to deal with the problems and are familiar with the issues and the details so they can work toward effective solutions,” Mr. McLaughlin said. “You want to try with a rookie quarterback or someone who knows something about the game? That’s essentially it.”

A spokesman for the influential Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, said, “Speaker Silver believes we already have term limits at the ballot box, where voters can select the person that they think will best represent their interests in government.” Mr. Silver was elected in 1976 and has been speaker since 1994.

A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno declined to comment, saying the poll results seemed suspect since they support the mission of the group that sponsored the poll. Mr. Bruno was elected in 1976 and was elected majority leader in 1995.

A state senator who was elected in 1998 and represents parts of Manhattan and the Bronx, Eric Schneiderman, acknowledged what he called “a very serious problem.”

“We don’t have a vigorous democracy because we don’t have competitive elections,” he said. However, he called term limits “an extremely crude solution to a very serious but somewhat complicated problem.”

Mr. Schneiderman said he thinks creating term limits without a public campaign finance system could end up giving special interests more power.

Despite the drawbacks, though, he said, “If the term limits people want to add some fuel to the reform fire, that’s okay.”

The poll was conducted on September 15.