‘Someone else’ favored as poll shows Paterson in a political free-fall
Published: March 24, 2009, 12:30 am
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ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson, hoping for a rebound with voters after some staff shake-ups and a series of town hall-style meetings with residents, continues to see his ratings in the polls slide to politically lethal levels.
Twice as many voters rate him unfavorably as favorably — just 29 percent give him a positive ranking, compared with 58 percent who hold a negative view — and only 19 percent have a positive view about his performance as governor, according to a Siena College Research Institute poll of 626 registered voters released Monday.
In a sign of severe slippage for the governor, 78 percent give him a negative job-performance rating, compared with 69 percent last month and 40 percent in December.
Two-thirds of voters now want “someone else” as governor.
“It has been all bad in the public’s mind. What they’re hearing about and from the governor is nothing good,” said Steven Greenburg, a spokesman for the Siena poll.
“There are still millions of dollars in commercials being run against him,” Greenburg said of ads by special-interest groups opposing the governor’s budget proposals.
“Voters have no optimism that the budget is going to get done on time, though they think it’s important. They think the state is heading in the wrong direction, and there’s no pushback. Everything is negative about the governor. There’s no consistent positive message coming from the governor, so voters are left with all bad and nothing good.”
Only 14 percent said they are now prepared to vote for Paterson as governor, compared with 67 percent who want someone else.
The percentage of those willing to vote for him is down from a Siena poll last month and off sharply from last November, when 42 percent said they would be willing to elect him.
When potential candidates are substituted for “someone else,” the numbers are chilling for the governor, who came to office last March after the resignation of Eliot L. Spitzer.
Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, said to be mulling a run for governor next year, would beat Paterson, 67-17 percent, in a hypothetical Democratic primary contest if the election were held now.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose name is floated often by Republicans, holds a 56-33 percent advantage over Paterson.
Upstate voters, some of whom are concerned about the all-New York City-based leadership of state government, are the least impressed with Albany and the governor.
Sixty-three percent of them who responded to the Siena poll said the state is heading in the wrong direction, compared with 38 percent of New York City voters and 52 percent statewide.
Sixty-five percent of upstate voters gave Paterson an unfavorable ranking, compared with 27 percent who say they regard him favorably.
“The speed of his falling numbers is staggering,” Greenburg said, noting the cut in half in just two months in his overall favorable rankings.
Eighty-eight percent of New Yorkers say it is important that the state budget be adopted by its on-time deadline of next Tuesday.
Only 36 percent think that it will be done by then.
The poll was conducted March 16-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
The Paterson administration connected some of the low numbers to ad campaigns being run by special interests upset about his proposed state budget funding cuts.
"Governor Paterson is standing up and making the hard choices. When you stand up for change and reform and when you fight to make government accountable to taxpayers, you get attacked by special interests," said Errol Cockfield, a Paterson spokesman.
"The governor has displayed strong leadership by forcing us to confront the reality that we can't put off the hard choices that are necessary to deal with the current economic crisis. He is fighting every single day for the people of New York,'' he added.
tprecious@buffnews.com
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