Poll: Cuomo's popularity hits 2-year high

ALBANY -- Gov. Andrew Cuomo's favorability among New Yorkers hit its highest point since January 2015, a poll Monday found.

Sixty percent of voters had a favorable view of the Democratic governor, and his job performance rating was positive for the first time since July 2014, the Siena College poll said.

Cuomo’s favorability rating was 60 percent to 34 percent, up from 56 percent to 37 last month. His job performance was 50 percent to 48 percent, up from a negative 45-53 percent last month, Siena said.

At the same time, for the second month in a row, President Trump’s favorability rating fell: to a negative 36 percent to 59 percent this month.

Cuomo has criticized Trump, a fellow New Yorker, on immigration, health care and women's rights.

“Voters like Cuomo more now than at any time since his second term began," Steven Greenberg, a Siena Poll spokesman, said in a statement.

"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."

The poll is a boost to Cuomo, first elected in 2011, as he goes into the next few weeks of budget negotiations with lawmakers for the fiscal year that starts April 1.

Much of Cuomo's agenda was supported by voters, such as extending the current income-tax rate on millionaires and allowing ride-hailing services upstate, Siena found.

The least liked was Cuomo's proposal for a 750-mile recreational trail across the state. Just 38 percent of voters supported the idea.

In Trump's home state, conversely, the Republican president had just a 29 percent job-approval rating.

The president's support largely cut across party lines in the heavily blue state: 71 percent of Republicans viewed him favorably, while 79 percent of Democrats viewed him unfavorably.

Cuomo's support also was affected by party affiliation: 75 percent of Democrats viewed him favorably, while only 38 percent of Republicans did so.

The governor's backing also had regional differences: His strongest support was in New York City, followed by upstate and then the New York City suburbs.

The poll from the Albany-area college was conducted Feb. 19-23 to 723 New York registered voters.

It had a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points.