Voters Give Cuomo His Best Favorability & Job
Performance Ratings in More than Two Years
Support Remains Strong for Millionaire’s Tax, Uber/Lyft Ride Sharing, Child Care Tax Credit, Limiting Legislators’ Outside Income, Free SUNY/CUNY Tuition for Those Earning Under $125K, Term Limits
Trump’s Favorability Rating Continues to Fall with New Yorkers;
Overall Job Performance Rating More than Two-to-One Negative
Loudonville, NY. For the first time since January 2015, 60 percent of New Yorkers have a favorable view of Governor Andrew Cuomo, and his job performance rating is now positive for the first time since July 2014, according to a new Siena College poll of New York State registered voters released today. Cuomo’s favorability rating is 60-34 percent, up from 56-37 last month. His job performance rating is 50-48 percent, up from a negative 45-53 percent last month. And for the first time, half of voters now say they are prepared to re-elect him. Support remains strong for several of the Governor’s budget proposals.
For the second month in a row, President Trump’s favorability rating fell. He now has a negative 36-59 percent favorability rating, down from a negative 37-55 percent favorability rating last month. Only 29 percent of New Yorkers give him a positive job performance rating, while 68 percent rate his job performance negatively. On nine specific issues, between 59 and 72 percent of voters give the President a negative job performance rating.
“Voters like Cuomo more now than at any time since his second term began. Maybe it’s because they like his 2017 agenda, or perhaps it’s a comparison with the President, or it might simply be because it’s been quiet the last few months on the corruption front. Whatever the reason, Cuomo is riding high with New Yorkers right now,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg. “Sixty percent of voters view him favorably, half give him a positive job performance rating and half say they are prepared to re-elect the Governor next year.
“More than three-quarters support Cuomo’s proposals to both extend the millionaire’s tax and allow ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft to operate across New York,” Greenberg said. “On ridesharing, at least 70 percent of voters from every region and party are supportive. At least 70 percent of voters from every region support the millionaire’s tax, as do 85 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans.”
“The Governor also enjoys strong bipartisan support for enhancing the middle-class child care tax credit, limiting legislators’ outside income and imposing term limits on both legislators and statewide office holders,” Greenberg said. “His proposal to make SUNY/CUNY tuition free for families earning less than $125,000 per year has support from both Democrats and independents, and is opposed by Republicans.
“Raising the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 is now supported by a small majority of voters, with Democrats strongly supportive, independents closely divided and Republicans opposed. Similarly, the Dream Act enjoys overwhelming Democratic support, while independents narrowly oppose it and three-quarters of Republicans oppose it,” Greenberg said. “Voters from every party and region are agreed in their opposition to the Governor’s proposal to complete a 750-mile biking and hiking pathway across the state.”
Partisan Divide on Voters’ View of Trump; Two-Thirds of NYers Rate His Job Performance Negatively
“In this deep blue state, Trump enjoys support from his fellow New York Republicans – 71 percent, down from 77 percent last month, view him favorably and 61 percent of Republicans give him a positive job performance rating,” Greenberg said. “However, 79 percent of Democrats view him unfavorably and 85 percent give him a negative job performance rating, while 53 percent of independents view him unfavorably and 64 percent rate his job performance negatively.
“Voters from every region of the state view Trump unfavorably, although it’s only a plurality of downstate suburbanites, and at least 62 percent of voters from every region give the President a negative job performance rating,” Greenberg said. “While 54 percent of white voters view Trump unfavorably, 83 percent of black voters and 77 percent of Latino voters have an unfavorable view of him. Similarly, 62 percent of white voters give him a negative job performance rating, compared to 96 percent of black voters and 86 percent of Latino voters.”
“On eight of nine specific issues, between 50 and 66 percent of Republicans give the President a positive job performance rating. However, between 54 and 71 percent of independents give him a negative job performance rating on all nine issues, and among Democrats, between 75 and 89 percent rate him negatively,” Greenberg said.
Eight Months Before Vote, Most New Yorkers Have Heard Nothing About a ConCon;
However, Support for a ConCon Continues to Remain Strong
“Although 71 percent of voters say they have read or heard nothing about the vote this November on whether New York should hold a Constitutional Convention, and only 11 percent saying they’ve read or heard at least some about it, a strong majority of voters continues to say they support having a ConCon,” Greenberg said. “Voters say they support a ConCon by a 63-24 percent margin, down a little from 68-19 percent support last June. About two-thirds of Democrats, independents, New York City voters and upstaters call themselves ConCon supporters, while support among Republicans – 53 percent – and downstate suburbanites – 54 percent – is strong but considerably weaker.”
New Yorkers Like State Legislature; Dislike Congress
“By a 10-point margin, voters view the State Senate favorably, and they view the State Assembly favorably by an eight-point margin,” Greenberg said. “However, by 18-point margins, New Yorkers have unfavorable views of both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives.”
# # #
This Siena College Poll was conducted February 19-23, 2017 by telephone calls conducted in English to 723 New York State registered voters. Respondent sampling was initiated by asking for the youngest male in the household. It has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.2 percentage points including the design effects resulting from weighting. Sampling was conducted via a stratified dual frame probability sample of landline and cell phone telephone numbers (both from Survey Sampling International) from within New York State weighted to reflect known population patterns. Data was statistically adjusted by age, party, region and gender to ensure representativeness. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social and cultural research primarily in NYS. SRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information, call Steve Greenberg at (518) 469-9858. For survey cross-tabs: www.Siena.edu/SCRI/SNY.
