Cuomo holds steady in poll but fares poorly on corruption

ALBANY – Gov. Cuomo can exhale.

A new poll shows his job approval ratings held steady between March and April after dropping since he signed New York's controversial new gun control law in January.

But voters don't like how he's addressing spiraling corruption in Albany, the Quinnipiac University poll out today found.

Voters give Cuomo a 57-29 percent overall job approval rating, virtually unchanged from the 55-27 Quinnipiac found last month.

But in the wake of two separate bribery cases this month involving three state lawmakers, voters by 52-37 said they don't think Cuomo's doing a good job trying to clean up corruption – which voters found to be a serious problem by a record 48 percent, highest since Quinnipiac started asking the question a decade ago.

AP

Cuomo's job performance numbers stayed steady, despite new gun law.

He can take heart, though – state legislative leaders get much lower marks for cleaning up corruption, with voters by 75-16 percent thinking they're doing a lousy job.

But Cuomo could be looking at a gender gap – and a geography gap, the April 9-14 telephone poll of 1,404 state voters found.

Women love the job he's doing (63-20), but men only approve 49-39.

And while upstate voters disapprove of Cuomo's gun policy by 54-37 percent, city and downstate suburban voters strongly support it (66-24 and 54-35).

"That first-in-the-nation gun-control package continues to hurt New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo politically, although, by margins of 2-1, New Yorkers overall like the tougher law," said Quinnipiac polling director Maurice Carroll. "The city-upstate split on the bill and the governor is huge."

Though more upstate voters approve than disapprove of Cuomo's overall performance, 46-39, voters in the city and suburbs give him much higher marks (67-18 and 58-27, respectively).

Overall, Cuomo got back in the good graces of Republicans.

They gave the first-term Democrat a 48-39 thumbs up in the survey after panning him 49-38 a month ago. Still, GOP voters disapprove of his handling of gun policy by 60-33.

Independents are dead even on that issue, with Democrats strongly supportive (69-21).

The corruption scandals haven't helped the state legislature, with voters disapproving of their job performance by 57-30 and giving Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), his lowest grade ever – 44-23 percent thumbs down.

Voters also see the Senate's unprecedented bi-partisan ruling coalition more as a "power grab" than "effective government," by 50-35.

The co-leaders, Republican Dean Skelos of Long Island and Independent Democrat Conference leader Jeff Klein of the Bronx, get disapproval ratings of 28-22 and 22-19, respectively.

The poll also found voters by 84-11 percent favor stripping pols convicted of felonies of their government pensions and by 55-35 percent think taxpayer financing of campaigns won't reduce corruption.