A plurality of voters in New York do not think Gov. Andrew Cuomo should resign from office as he faces a barrage of controversies over the last five months, a Siena College poll released on Monday found.
The poll shows 49% of voters do not support the governor's resignation; 41% of those surveyed do. Last month, the same poll found 51% of do not support Cuomo's resignation; 37% at the time did.
The poll released Monday continues to show Cuomo holding a majority of voters in New York support for remaining in office from his base: 59% of Democrats don't support his resignation, along with 61% of Black voters. Independent voters are evenly split on the resignation question at 45%, the poll found.
The poll of 793 registered voters was conducted from May 16 to May 20; it has a margin of error of 4 percentage points. The cross tabs of the poll and the questions can be found here.
Cuomo has been accused of sexual harassment or misconduct by multiple women since the end of last year. His administration is under a federal investigation over how it counted and reported the deaths of nursing home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His administration reportedly arranged for access to COVID-19 tests family members of the governor, as well as those close to him. Last week, his office disclosed Cuomo received a $5.1 million contract to write a book about the pandemic that utilized government aides to help him compile it; Cuomo has donated $500,000 to the United Way and put $1 million into a trust for his daughters.
Prominent Democrats, including most of the state's congressional delegation and members of the state Legislature, have called on Cuomo to resign. An Assembly-led impeachment investigation has been underway for several weeks, and Attorney General Letitia James's office is investigating the harassment allegations.
And yet Cuomo has refused to step aside from the office he's held since 2011, insisting he has done nothing wrong. In recent weeks, Cuomo has said he is eager to tell his side of the sexual harassment allegations, and has once again defended the access to COVID-19 testing for those close to him, arguing it was a standard procedures done out of safety.
Most voters polled 42%, believe Cuomo committed sexual harassment, a number that has essentially not budged since last month, when it stood at 44%.
At the moment, public opinion in New York — a heavily Democratic state that has re-elected Cuomo twice — remains mixed.
Cuomo's favorability rating is at a 44% to 48% split, an improvement of 40% to 52% last month. His job performance rating is essentially unchanged at 42%.
At the moment, 37% of voters are prepared to re-elect the embattled governor, and 53% prefer a generic "someone else," the poll found.
An unnamed Democrat would handily defeat an unnamed Republican in New York, 55% to 29%, according to the poll. Cuomo would lead an unnamed Republican by 10 percentage points in a tighter race, 48% to 38%.
Multiple Republicans in the last month, including Rep. Lee Zeldin, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino and Andrew Giuliani, have announced their bids to seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination more than a year out from the election.
Still, a majority of voters continue to back the governor's handling of the defining crisis of the last year, the COVID-19 pandemic: 58% approve of his handling of it; 35% of voters do not. At the same time, 58% of voters believe Cuomo is an effective communicator, 56% approve of his handling of the rollout of coronavirus vaccinations and 51% support his handling of the economic reopening.
Cuomo continues to receive poor grades, however, when it comes to nursing home fatality transparency: Only 30% voters believe he is doing a good or excellent job on the issue.