- NYers Continue to Approve Cuomo’s Handling of Pandemic Nearly 2-to-1 (60-32%); By 44-22% They Say Cuomo Has Committed Sexual Harassment
- Voters Divided on Budget – 38% Say Good for NY, 36% Say Bad for NY;Overwhelming Support (72-20%) for Millionaire’s Tax, Strong Support (57-36%) for Legalized Pot; Support (53-39%) for ‘Excluded Workers Fund’
Loudonville, NY. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s favorability, job performance and re-elect ratings all continued to head in a downward trend, as his favorability rating is now negative 40-52 percent, down from 43-45 percent in March and 56-39 percent in February. At the same time, a majority of New Yorkers continue to say both that he should not resign, 51-37 percent (50-35 percent in April), and that he can effectively do his job as governor,
52-38 percent (48-34 percent last month).
Voters approve of Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, 60-32 percent, virtually unchanged from 60-33 percent last month. By a 44-22 percent margin, voters think Cuomo has committed sexual harassment, with 34 percent undecided. Last month, a plurality, 41 percent, were undecided, with voters thinking he had 35-24 percent.
“Voters to Andrew Cuomo: ‘we’ve got some good news and some bad news.’ On the one hand, his favorability rating is now the lowest it has ever been, with more than 50 percent of voters viewing Cuomo unfavorably for the very first time in a Siena College poll. On the other hand, a majority of voters – including Democrats by two-to-one and a plurality of independents – continue to say that Cuomo should not resign, and a similar majority say he can still effectively do his job as governor,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.
Cuomo’s job performance rating is negative 42-56 percent, down from 46-52 percent in March and 51-47 percent in February. Right now, 33 percent are prepared to re-elect Cuomo next year if he runs, compared to 57 percent who prefer ‘someone else,’ down from 34-52 percent in March and 46-45 percent in February.
“While the erosion in Cuomo’s favorability, job performance and re-elect ratings was not as large in April – falling between six and 10 points – as it was in March – falling between 10 and 19 points – his ratings continue to push further into negative territory,” Greenberg said. “Interestingly, since February, on all three measures, there was virtually no movement among Republicans, who already had Cuomo at very low levels. There was significant downward movement by independents and the largest drop was among Democrats.
“In February, Democrats were prepared to re-elect Cuomo 65-26 percent. Today, Democrats say they would re-elect Cuomo next year by the narrowest of margins, 46-43 percent,” Greenberg said. “At the same time, by a margin of 85-7 percent, Democrats say they want to see a Democrat win in next year’s gubernatorial election, as do all voters by a 52-32 percent margin.
“Cuomo’s favorability rating among Democrats today, 56-37 percent, is down significantly from 78-18 percent in February. That said, Democrats continue to overwhelmingly approve of the job Cuomo is doing to address the pandemic, 78-16 percent, little changed from 83-12 percent approval in February,” Greenberg said. “Democrats also still give Cuomo strong grades on four aspects of his handling of the pandemic – vaccine rollout, reopening plans, communicating with New Yorkers, and providing accurate information. Democrats join Republicans and independents in giving Cuomo negative grades for his handling of making nursing home patient death data public.
“While voters continue to say Cuomo should not resign and can continue to operate effectively, a clear plurality of voters now say they believe Cuomo has committed sexual harassment, including Republicans by 39 points, independents by 29 points and Democrats by nine points, as well as men by 23 points and women by 20 points,” Greenberg said. “Last month, a plurality of all those demographic groups, except Republicans, were undecided on whether or not Cuomo had committed sexual harassment.”
New Yorkers Divided on Budget; Support to Overwhelming Support for Three Headline Issues
When asked whether the state budget and new laws that were recently passed would, overall, be good or bad for New Yorkers like them, 38 percent said they will be good and 36 percent said bad. By a margin of 72-20 percent, voters approve of increasing tax rates on millionaires. They approve of legalizing the recreational use of marijuana 57-36 percent. And they approve of the $2.1 billion in assistance to workers, including undocumented immigrants, who lost employment during the pandemic but were ineligible for federal aid.
“Collectively, New Yorkers are divided when it comes to whether the recently concluded budget process will be good or bad for people like them. Democrats overwhelmingly think the budget will be good for New Yorkers like them while Republicans even more overwhelmingly think it will be bad, and independents agree with Republicans that the budget will be bad for New Yorkers like them, two-to-one,” Greenberg said.
“Some of the specific proposals passed enjoy widespread support. Raising the tax on millionaires has support from 86 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of independents. Even Republicans support it 47-40 percent,” Greenberg said. “Despite Republican opposition to legalizing marijuana, Democrats and independents strongly support it. The new ‘excluded workers fund’ included in the budget has 71 percent support from Democrats,
68 percent opposition from Republicans, while independents are closely divided, supporting it 48-45 percent.”
Odds & Ends
- Rep. Lee Zeldin, the first declared 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate, has an 18-17 percent favorability rating, comparable to Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul’s 18-13 percent favorability rating.
- President Joe Biden has a 62-33 percent favorability rating, down slightly from 64-30 percent in March. His job performance rating is 53-45 percent, also down slightly from last month’s 54-41 percent.
- Not quite as optimistic about the end of the pandemic this month, 60 percent think the worst of the pandemic is over, compared to 27 percent who say the worst is still to come. Last month it was 62-25 percent.
- Sixty percent of voters say they have been vaccinated, with another 23 percent planning to. Only 14 percent of voters say they don’t plan to get the vaccinated, down from 21 percent in March and 25 percent in January.
- Both houses of the Legislature saw their favorability rating drop this month. The Senate has a 46-32 percent favorability rating, down from 50-28 percent. The Assembly has a 42-30 rating, down from 49-25 percent.
This Siena College Poll was conducted April 11-15, 2021 among 801 New York State registered voters with 501 voters contacted through a dual frame (landline and cell phone) mode and 300 responses drawn from a proprietary online panel (Lucid) of New Yorkers. Telephone calls were conducted in English and respondent sampling was initiated by asking for the youngest person in the household. Telephone sampling was conducted via a stratified dual frame probability sample of landline (ASDE) and cell phone (Dynata) telephone numbers within New York State weighted to reflect known population patterns. Data from both collection modes (phone and web) was merged and statistically adjusted by age, party by region, race/ethnicity, education, and gender to ensure representativeness. It has an overall margin of error of +/- 4.3 percentage points including the design effects resulting from weighting. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social, and cultural research primarily in NYS. SCRI, 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 crosstabs: www.Siena.edu/SCRI/SNY.
