New York voters gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo high marks for his response to Superstorm Sandy, a poll today found.
Sixty-seven percent of voters said Cuomo has done an excellent or good job dealing with the devastating Oct. 29 storm, the Siena College poll said. Cuomo was headed today to Washington D.C. to lobby for $42 billion the state is seeking from the federal government for storm repairs. It will be the Democratic governor’s first trip to Washington since he took office last year; he is scheduled to meet with congressional leaders.
“New Yorkers are very impressed with the job that Governor Cuomo has done over the last several weeks in dealing with Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg in a statement.
Other leaders received positive grades for their efforts during the storm, which knocked out power to more than 2 million residents in New York City and its suburbs and destroyed some communities along the shoreline. President Obama got a 61 percent approval, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was rated positively by 55 percent of New Yorkers.
The state’s public authorities, which struggled for weeks in some areas to restore power, got less positive results, the poll found. Con Edison, which serves New York City and Westchester County, had a 39-29 percent positive rating, although 54 percent approved in the city.
The Long Island Power Authority, which received the most criticism in the wake of the storm and had several of its top officials resign as a result, was graded as having done a poor job by nearly half of New Yorkers and about 60 percent of downstate residents, the poll found.
Residents agreed with Cuomo’s assessment that climate change is real. By a 69-24 percent margin, voters said recent severe storms were a result of climate change. Cuomo has warned that New York, particularly along the coastline, needs to rebuild to take into account the likelihood of future severe storms because of climate change.
Cuomo has received high approval ratings generally in polls by Siena and other polling institutes. A Siena poll last month found Cuomo with a 67 percent approval rating.
During the storm, Cuomo held daily press briefings and toured ravaged communities, including being in lower Manhattan during the height of the storm. He has criticized power companies for their response and has threatened to remove their state licenses if they didn’t respond adequately to customers’ needs. But he has also been knocked for not doing more to overhaul LIPA since he took office, and he sparked controversy when he said recently that Sandy had a larger economic impact that Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Today’s Siena poll found that more than half of New Yorkers said they made a charitable contribution to the storm relief, and about one-quarter said they volunteered their time to the effort.
The poll was conducted Nov. 26-29 to 822 New York registered voters. It has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
1 Comment
Polls are just another way the government misleads the people, they have no meaning in “the real world” maybe in the political world they mean something, but, polls are the reality or the truth. Andrew Cuomo has the initials AC, he passes laws as though he is an anti-Christ. He wants to be the next President of the United States, but he is nothing more then a lobbyist who sold his soul to the devil for a dollar and a dream.
Is Andrew Cuomo a full blooded Italian, but, an interesting question is, what other nationality is he, is he Jewish, is he Hispanic, what other mixed is he? Does anyone know? I think it would be interesting to find out. I think the Jewish and Hispanic communities have a right to know where Andrew Cuomo’s descendants come from, do they come from Israel, however, we do know his father Mario is a full blooded Italian, but what is the nationality of Andrew Cuomo’s mother Mildred? She might be half Italian, we don’t know, does anybody know? I met her a couple of times she seems like a nice person, she is very involved in the Jewish community in Brooklyn, that is why I ask this question. My first cousins are Jew Whoppies, there is nothing wrong with that, you get to celebrate two reasons for the seasons.
I think the only thing that could make Andrew Cuomo have clout with the working class, is if he doubles the NYS unemployment checks because $405.00 a week is welfare status. And, if he demands that Con Edison lower their rates, as well, as other organizations who are robbing the working class, and close down the New York State casino’s, let all the casino’s go private, the state should not be in the gambling business. Take a poll on those subjects, than, you’re taking a poll.
Barbara Ricci, Publisher of The Westchester News