ALBANY — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s approval rating dropped modestly in recent weeks, according to a Morning Consult poll released on Monday. But it remains high compared with polls taken before the pandemic hit about a year ago.
The poll found that 57 percent of voters approve of Cuomo’s job performance and 38 percent disapprove. That’s based on 3,203 responses received from Feb. 12-21, immediately after the Feb. 11 publication of a New York Post story detailing his administration’s decision to withhold data about the deaths of nursing home residents.
That figure is down from the 63-33 Cuomo polled in a pair of Morning Consult surveys released in late January and earlier this month.
But it’s still a big jump from the pre-pandemic days. Morning Consult had Cuomo polling at 47-42 at the end of 2019 and 49-40 around the time he coasted to a third term in 2018.
Among Democrats, likely the most crucial voting bloc should Cuomo run for reelection next year, when he’ll be sure to face a primary challenge, the number who “strongly approve” of Cuomo’s performance has fallen from 42 percent to 33 percent since late January. But the number who either “strongly approve” or “somewhat approve” remained high at 81 percent.
The Siena College Research Institute in New York released a poll earlier this month finding that 56 percent of New York voters viewed him favorably and 39 percent unfavorably, basically unchanged from the two previous Siena surveys. Their poll was conducted after Attorney General Tish James detailed Cuomo’s “undercounting” of nursing home deaths but before the publication of the Post story.
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Originally published at https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2021/02/22/cuomo-approval-drops-in-new-poll-but-remains-strong-1364870 on .
