The majority of New York City residents say their city is headed in the wrong direction and a close-to-majority say the same thing about the state, according to a Spectrum News NY1/Siena College poll released Tuesday.
Three-quarters of respondents say they felt less safe across the city than they did before the pandemic, according to the poll, and respondents used the term “fair” most frequently to rate both Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul’s job performance, at 35% and 36%, respectively.
Respondents expressed their highest disapproval with Mayor Adams’ handling of homelessness and fighting crime, with 49% and 45% of New Yorkers saying he’s doing a poor job on those issues.
Adams’ spokesperson Fabien Levy said the poll showed New Yorkers are rightly worried about crime, which is why public safety has been Adams’ top priority since day one.
“While reducing crime in the city won’t happen overnight, we are seeing movement and the most recent figures from the NYPD reflect progress, with shootings going down week after week for the last two months. Mayor Adams is laser-focused on reducing gun violence, which is why nearly two-thirds of New Yorkers rated Mayors Adams as ‘excellent,’ ‘good,’ or ‘fair’ in this survey,” said Levy.
Adams’ approval rating is down compared to a Marist College poll from March where 40% said Adams was doing an excellent or good job, compared to eleven percentage points lower today.
However, 72% still said Adams is doing better or about as well as former Mayor de Blasio did on the job while 17% said de Blasio did a better job and 12% had no opinion or didn’t know.
Hochul’s approval rating change is more difficult to infer. An early May Quinnipiac poll found that 50% of the city’s registered voters approved of job as governor and 40% disapproved. For the Governor’s job rating, 36% of New Yorkers rated Gov. Hochul’s performance as fair, 7% as excellent, 28% as good, 18% poor and 12% didn’t know or had no opinion.
Gov. Hochul is facing a primary election at the end of June against New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi. After missing the first debate last Thursday night, all three candidates are scheduled to appear on CBS New York debate later Tuesday night.
