New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Wednesday that he would not resign. | Photo by Seth Wenig / AP
ALBANY, NY – Most New Yorkers do not want Governor Andrew Cuomo to step down as he faces two scandals over allegations of sexual harassment and says he hid the death toll from nursing home residents, according to a survey released in the Thursday.
The Quinnipiac poll, which showed Cuomo’s numbers at the bottom and found that most residents are opposed to him seeking a fourth term, was far from disastrous for an increasingly troubled governor.
Forty percent of voters said he should resign, while 55% said he should not. Most Democrats are with him: only 21% say he should step down.
The governor said on Wednesday that he will not give up.
Forty-five percent of respondents approve of the way he is handling his work, while 46% disapprove. That’s a little under 72-24 that Cuomo received in a Quinnipiac survey last May, when he was at the height of his popularity. But it is not unlike the most recent Quinnipiac survey conducted before the pandemic, when 42 percent of respondents said they viewed Cuomo favorably and 45 percent said they saw him unfavorably.
The poll also found that only 36 percent of voters want Cuomo to seek a fourth term next year, while 59 percent do not. The governor did better among Democrats, whose support is the most critical in a state where most state disputes are decided in the primaries: 50% want him to run for re-election, while 44% do not.
It doesn’t seem that Quinnipiac has asked that exact question about Cuomo before. But it is entirely consistent with the findings of other polls over the years: one from Siena in June 2019 found that the votes reached 37 to 58 on the question of whether he should run for a fourth term, an insignificant difference from the poll current Quinnipiac.
Regarding the allegations of harassment themselves, a total of 79% of respondents said that they considered them “very” or “a little” serious. Only 27 percent are satisfied with the governor’s explanation and apology, while 59 percent are not. And only 30% think he is “being truthful” in his answer, while 48% say he is not.
Quinnipiac spoke to 935 registered voters on March 2 and 3, and his numbers have a margin of error of 3.2 points. See the cross-reference tables here.