Poll Watch: New Yorkers Speak

I briefly mentioned the new Siena College poll as a Sidebar to this week's Sunday School, but I wanted to take a deeper look at the poll today. 

First, the small print: it was taken March 8-12; 805 NYS registered voters participated, 430 via landline and cell phones, and 375 online via a proprietary panel. The youngest person in the household was asked to participate. Phone and web data was merged and statistically adjusted by age, party, region, race/ethnicity, education, and gender. The error margin is 4.1%.

Recapping the info about the Sonofa Gov, the survey found

• 48% think Gov. Andrew Cuomo can effectively do his job despite the investigations; 34% say he can't (a +14 margin);
• 35% (+11) believe he has sexually harassed women; 
• 57% (+25) are satisfied with how he's addressed the allegations against him; and
• Blacks are the only group where a majority (59%) want to see him re-elected.

Here's some detail on the resignation question; as I noted yesterday, 50% say he should not.

• Independents are the most conflicted on that; 46% say no, but 22% are undecided;
• the 'no' votes from all regions of the state: 55% in NYC, 46% in the NYC suburbs, and 47% upstate;
• Blacks (69%) offer more support for him staying in office than other ethnicities; whites and Latinos both are at 47%,' and
• responses are pretty consistent across income levels: 51% of the <$50K, 47% of the $50K - $100K, and 52% of the >$100K all say he should not resign.

Here's what else is on our minds in the Empire State.

• By a slight margin (but within the margin of error), more of us think the country is on the right track (50%) than think New York is (48%).
• Independents view Joe Biden (57%) more favorably than they do Andrew Cuomo (38%), and Cuomo more favorably than they do former NYer Donald Trump (34%).
• Higher income earners ($100K and up) significantly favor Biden (65%) over both Cuomo (43%) and Trump (30%)
• Upstaters show higher favorability ratings for both the Assembly (42%) and Senate (44%) than I expected; Independents (35% and 36%, respectively) are less happy with both chambers. 
• Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins have extraordinarily high Don't Know/No Opinion ratings (71% and 68% respectively), given they're not new in their roles. That may have to do with them being in Cuomo's shadow, until recently.
• Our senior Senator, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, has both a higher favorable rating than Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (49% to 43%) and a higher unfavorable rating (35% to 27%). 
• With 74% overall support, we love the Biden administration's American Rescue Plan. Other than Republicans (48%), a majority of every single demographic - political party, ideology, gender, union and non-union households, all age groups, all declared faiths, all geographic regions, all races/ethnicities, and all income brackets - support it.

Finally, since we're in budget season, here are the responses to a couple of potential money-making opportunities for the state.

• On whether we should allow online sports betting, at least a plurality of all demographics except Jews (38%) says yes.
• Similarly, on the question of legal recreational pot, at least a plurality of all demographics says yes.

Do you see your opinions represented here? And are they accurate compared to what you and folks in your circles (or COVID pods) are thinking? Chime in!