Even as he continues to hold commanding leads over his potential GOP challengers, Gov. Cuomo’s job approval rating fell below 50% just eight months before the election, a new Siena College poll released Tuesday found.
The poll shows that Cuomo saw his job performance rating flip from positive to negative over the past month. Slightly more than half–51%–now rate Cuomo’s job performance as fair or poor while just 48% say the incumbent Democrat is doing an excellent or good job. That’s a big turnaround from just a month ago, when 54% gave him a positive job performance rating and 46% a negative one.
The Siena poll oddly found that virtually every major politician in New York, regardless of party, lost ground over the past month.
“The voters of this state are less happy with politicians, elected officials right now than they were a month ago and it is across the board,” Siena poll spokesman Steven Greenberg said. “Maybe it’s the long winter.”
The biggest drops for Cuomo were with independent, downstate suburban and upstate voters. He lost virtually all the gains he saw between November and January, Greenberg said.
Still, the governor’s overall numbers in his re-election year remain strong.
Six in 10 still view Cuomo favorably while just over a third view him unfavorably. That’s down from a 66% to 28% favorable-to-unfavorable rating a month ago.
And 54% say they are ready to re-elect him in November compared to 37% who would prefer someone else. Last month 57% said they were prepared to re-elect Cuomo versus 33% who said they weren’t.
Cuomo in the latest poll would beat Republican Westchester County Executive
(
pictured
), who is finalizing his decision on whether to run, by a whopping 64% to 22% margin. He led by 48-percentage points last month.
And he’d trounce billionaire developer
, who still insists he’s considering a run as a Republican despite widespread skepticism, by a 68% to 24% margin. He led by 48 percentage points last month.
A hefty 62% of voters view Trump unfavorably while less than a third view him favorably.
For Astorino, he has to overcome a lack of name recognition against a governor who already has $33.3 million in his campaign account.
Nearly three-quarters of the electorate either don’t know about him or haven’t yet formed an opinion.
IMAGES: RICHARD DREW/AP; MIKE GROLL/AP
