Poll: Three Democratic politicians' popularity drops in New York

                                                                   

 

 Sidebars to opinion polls are sometimes just as interesting as the poll's headline news.

 Take the Marist College poll released today.

The headline was about Gov. Andrew Cuomo: 61 percent of registered New York voters think Cuomo mishandled the coronavirus in nursing homes, the poll found; 19 percent think he did something illegal.

These results are not surprising on the south shore of Long Island  where "Impeach Cuomo" signs appeared along major and minor roadways in late spring and early summer.

The death toll in nursing homes from the coronavirus -- after the Cuomo administration issued a March 25 order that required hospitals to discharge covid patients into nursing homes and other long-term care facilities whether or not they were contagious -- hit Long Island families hard. 

Statewide, 42 percent of voters say Cuomo is doing an excellent or good job in office, the poll found, down from 60 percent in July.

A majority of New Yorkers -- 54 percent --  still approve of how Cuomo is handling the pandemic, compared to 71 percent in July. 

But it has to be pointed out that these are fairly early numbers. In general, it takes about three weeks of constant bad news to move opinion polls.

The Marist poll is based on surveying 953 adults in New York from Feb. 15 through Feb. 17.

The first grim news came when State Attorney General Letitia James released a bombshell report on Jan. 28, saying that Cuomo may have undercounted nursing home deaths by as much as 50 percent. The state at that point was reporting about 8,100 nursing home deaths.

More bad news came after that: a judge ordered the release of nursing home data to the Empire Center, which calculated more than 15,000 nursing home deaths. News services reported that about 1,000 deaths could be attributed to Cuomo's March order,  a Democratic state assemblyman claims Cuomo threatened him in an attempt to silence him and the FBI and U.S. attorney allegedly are investigating whether Cuomo covered up the true numbers.

But Cuomo isn't the only one who has fallen in popularity, the poll found.

Despite the U.S. Senate turning Democrat, boosting New York Sen. Chuck Schumer to the position of majority leader, the poll found the Brooklyn Democrat's approval rating is at its lowest point in more than  20 years.

The poll said 41 percent of New York's registered voters think Schumer is doing an excellent or good job while 52 percent describe his job performance as fair or poor. That is Schumer's lowest approval rating since March 2000, when 39 percent of voters approved of his job, the poll said.

Among registered Democrats, 57 percent think he is doing an excellent or good job while only 17 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of voters that are not enrolled in a party agree.

Unfortunately, the poll does not indicate why Schumer's approval rating has dipped.

Meanwhile, only 36 percent of New York voters think U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand , an upstate Democrat and former presidential aspirant,  is doing a good job, the poll reports.

Democrats are divided on Gillibrand's performance: 50 percent say she is doing an above average job while only 18 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of non-registered voters say she is doing an excellent or good job, the poll found.