Tag: Andrew Cuomo

Manhattanville College (PDF, 2/28-3/5, registered voters, no trendlines):

David Paterson (D-inc): 36

Rudy Giuliani (R): 50

Undecided: 14

Andrew Cuomo (D): 51

Rudy Giuliani (R): 36

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±4.4%)

I still very much doubt that Rudy will run, but these are ugly numbers for Paterson nonetheless. His favorables are 41-46 and his job approval is 29-66, matching what we’ve seen in other polls. I don’t love Andrew Cuomo, but the deep dissatisfaction with Paterson certainly gives him the “argument” he needs to justify a run.

The Manhattanville poll is also interesting because they asked a lot of open-ended questions (something you don’t see in most surveys) trying to pin down exactly why people don’t like Paterson. It’s worth checking out for an in-depth look.

Marist (2/25-26, registered voters, 1/27 in parentheses):

David Paterson (D-inc): 26

Andrew Cuomo (D): 62

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rudy Giuliani (R): 78

Rick Lazio (R): 17

(MoE: ±5.5%)

David Paterson (D-inc): 38 (46)

Rudy Giuliani (R): 53 (47)

David Paterson (D-inc): 47

Rick Lazio (R): 35

Andrew Cuomo (D): 56

Rudy Giuliani (R): 39

Andrew Cuomo (D): 71

Rick Lazio (R): 20

(MoE: ±3%)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 36

Carolyn McCarthy (D): 33

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Peter King (R): 32

George Pataki (R): 56

(MoE: ±5.5%)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 49 (49)

Peter King (R): 28 (24)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 45 (44)

George Pataki (R): 41 (42)

(MoE: ±3%)

Whew! That’s a lot of data for one poll. And none of it is good for Gov. David Paterson, who can’t muster even half the support of AG Andrew Cuomo in a primary matchup… and if he miraculously makes it through the primary, he’s poised to get creamed by Rudy Giuliani, of all people.

There’s also the wee matters of his approval rating (26% ‘excellent’ or ‘good,’ which is lower than George Pataki, Mario Cuomo, or Eliot Spitzer ever managed), disapproval over his handling of the budget (30/59, down from 42/41 in January, suggesting that most of his continued plunge is about the budget and not about senate seat blowback), and terrible ‘wrong track’ numbers for the state of New York (27/65). The only thing he has to be thankful about: that he’s not ex-Rep. Rick Lazio, the one man in the state who’s even less popular.

On the Senate front, Paterson’s appointee Kirsten Gillibrand is still in something of a holding pattern as her constituents get to know her. She’s getting only 18% ‘excellent’ or ‘good ratings, compared with 32% ‘fair’ or ‘poor,’ but 50% of the sample just says ‘don’t know.’ She fares well against Rep. Peter King, but ex-Gov. George Pataki (who hasn’t really expressed interest in the race, although John Cornyn has been privately buttering him up) makes the race competitive. Her toughest task may still be defending her left flank in the primary, although unlike Quinnipiac‘s February poll, which had Gillibrand down 34-24 to Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, Marist gives Gillibrand the narrow edge. (Discussion is underway in andgarden‘s aptly titled diary.)

Quinnipiac (2/10-15, registered voters):

David Paterson (D-inc): 23

Andrew Cuomo (D): 55

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 24

Carolyn McCarthy (D): 34

(MoE: ±4.6%)

David Paterson (D-inc): 43

Rudy Giuliani (R): 43

Andrew Cuomo (D): 51

Rudy Giuliani (R): 37

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 42

Peter King (R): 26

(MoE: ±3%)

In the political chess game, David Paterson may have felt he was thinking ten moves ahead by picking Kirsten Gillibrand to fill the vacant Senate seat, by picking a young, charismatic woman with monster fundraising capacities who may well be holding the seat 40 years from now. However, it’s starting to look like, in doing so, he wasn’t thinking two moves ahead… as Quinnipiac now shows both Paterson and Gillibrand highly vulnerable in the 2010 primary. Picking Andrew Cuomo to fill the Senate seat would have killed two birds with one stone in the short-term for Paterson (get a Senator who’s known statewide and ready to stand on his own, and give his electoral archrival something to do other than challenge him in the 2010 election). Instead, he gambled on long-term dividends, and it’s possible neither he nor Gillibrand will be around to enjoy them.

The Gillibrand/McCarthy numbers seem likely to evolve over time, as 39% remain undecided. And both candidates seem largely unknown outside their respective corners of the state; Gillibrand’s favorables are 24/9 with 65% “haven’t heard enough,” (and 81% “haven’t heard enough” in the NYC Suburbs) while McCarthy’s are also 24/9, with 66% “haven’t heard enough” (with 88% “haven’t heard enough” upstate). An uncontroversial two years for Gillibrand, combined with tacking left on guns and immigration issues, should bring her numbers up (although revelations like the one today that she keeps two guns under her bed can’t be helping matters). Gillibrand has little trouble disposing of Rep. Peter King in the general (there’s no polling of an all-LI slugfest between King and McCarthy).

Paterson, however, trails Cuomo by a 2-1 margin, and, unlike Gillibrand, everyone knows who he is. His favorables are a fairly grim 41/35, while Cuomo clocks in at 63/15. Cuomo also dominates a hypothetical matchup against Rudy Giuliani while Paterson only ties him. Much of this does, in fact, seem to be blowback from the senator selection process. Paterson gets a mark of 35/52 for approval/disapproval of how he handled the process, down from 44/42 from last month. We may be looking at a truly epic miscalculation from Paterson here, one for the history books.

From PPP

When it comes to whether they would prefer to see Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo

appointed, 58% now prefer Cuomo to 27% for Kennedy.  Cuomo is favored by 65% of

Republicans, 59% of independents, and 54% of Democrats.  A PPP survey conducted a

month ago showed Cuomo as the top choice for just 23% of Democrats, compared to

44% who wanted Kennedy.

“When Caroline Kennedy was first mentioned as a possible Senate appointee there was a

lot of enthusiasm among New York Democrats about her,” said Dean Debnam, President

of Public Policy Polling.  “Her reputation has taken a pretty clear hit over the last month,

and if Governor Paterson does end up appointing her she’s going to have some work to

do to overcome this bad first impression she’s made on New York voters.”

57% of New Yorkers view Andrew Cuomo favorably with just 20% having an

unfavorable opinion of him.  For Kennedy the numbers are 44% favorable and 40%

unfavorable.

PPP surveyed 700 New York voters on January 3rd and 4th.  The survey’s margin of error

is +/-3.7%.  Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce

additional error that is more difficult to quantify.  

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

EDIT:

New York State voters have cooled on Caroline Kennedy and more voters now prefer State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo 31 – 24 percent for Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney gets 6 percent, with 5 percent for U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, 2 percent for U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, 18 percent for someone else and 14 percent undecided.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x128…

The most striking thing in this poll to me is the lowering of Kennedy’s favorable from a previous poll, and the rapid increase in Cuomo’s favorables and choice of New Yorkers’ of him as the next Senator.

Doesn’t this mean that Patterson should move quickly to appoint, given that he has interviewed about 15 people and because the public is so far in one person’s corner.  

EDIT: Also look at the q poll which shows a smaller margin.

Or is Cuomo not the right person?

PPP (1/3-4, registered voters):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 58 (23)

Caroline Kennedy (D): 27 (44)

Undecided: 14 (8)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Something big has happened over the last few weeks in the “race” to succeed Hillary Clinton as New York’s junior senator, according to the trendlines set by the new PPP poll. The Kennedy boomlet seems to have crested and is receding, suggesting that her awkward media rollout and halting answers to questions has prompted something of a backlash. (In fact, 44% of those surveyed state that their opinion of Kennedy has become less favorable since she started publicly campaigning for the seat.)

However, there is one important apples ‘n’ oranges problem here. The month-old PPP poll was a) only of Democrats, rather than all New York voters like this one, and b) included a whole raft of other candidates instead of just the big 2, although none of them polled above the single digits. The month-old Marist poll (which was of registered voters, and found Kennedy and Cuomo tied at 25%, with 26% undecided and the balance going to other candidates) might be a better reference point, although even if you use that as a benchmark, you still have a pretty significant Kennedy collapse. Another approach is to delve into the crosstabs, which indicate in the current sample that Cuomo leads Kennedy 54-34 among Democrats only (with 12% undecided)… again, a pretty steep turnaround.

Of course, there’s only one voter in this race, and if there’s any substance to the trial balloons floated by the Paterson camp last Friday, he may well be on track to pick Kennedy anyway.

PPP (12/8-9, Democrats)

Caroline Kennedy (D): 44

Andrew Cuomo (D): 23

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 6

Tom Suozzi (D): 3

Byron Brown (D): 3

Carolyn Maloney (D): 3

Nydia Velazquez (D): 4

Brian Higgins (D): 5

Not sure/someone else: 8

(MoE: ±3.2%)

PPP’s poll of New York Democrats shows a wide showing of support for Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton (to the seat once held by Robert F. Kennedy). Now, it could certainly be argued that this is simply a test of name recognition, seeing as how there isn’t any public campaigning for the position; this really isn’t any different than a poll of vice-presidential preferences, since there’s really only one voter that decides the race (David Paterson, in this case). But it suggests that not only is Paterson safe in appointing elective neophyte Kennedy, but that he’d likely receive widespread support for doing so.

Second choice for NY-Sen

Caroline Kennedy (D): 24

Andrew Cuomo (D): 35

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 4

Tom Suozzi (D): 4

Byron Brown (D): 5

Carolyn Maloney (D): 9

Nydia Velazquez (D): 6

Brian Higgins (D): 5

Not sure/someone else: 9

As an added bonus, PPP also asks respondents their second choices. It looks like Kennedy-then-Cuomo and Cuomo-then-Kennedy are by far the most common configurations (again, assumedly because of their high name recognition), although Carolyn Maloney puts together a surprisingly strong showing (probably thanks to her presence in the NYC media market).

Marist (12/8, registered voters)

Caroline Kennedy (D): 25

Andrew Cuomo (D): 25

Byron Brown (D): 6

Nydia Velazquez (D): 4

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 4

Carolyn Maloney (D): 3

Tom Suozzi (D): 3

Adolfo Carrion (D): 2

Steve Israel (D): 1

Unsure: 26

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Marist, by contrast, polls registered voters instead of Democrats only, and seems to push leaners less. They find a much closer contest between Kennedy and Cuomo, suggesting a lot of Democratic loyalty to the House of Kennedy. Breakdown by party shows Democrats supporting 31 for Kennedy vs. 21 for Cuomo, while Republican support is 34 for Cuomo and 21 for Kennedy. Kennedy leads in NYC, while Cuomo gets the plurality of support in the suburbs and upstate.

Then who would Gov. David Paterson appoint in her stead? Paterson needs to think about, among other things, a) removing potential threats to his governorship and b) earning some serious favors and goodwill. Picking AG Andrew Cuomo ships a contender off to DC, and would also let Paterson earn a second chit with an appointment to the Attorney General post.

Alternately (as Trapper John suggested to me), he could pick someone like Rep. Nydia Velazquez (NY-12), which might burnish his support among Hispanics and women. TJ also tossed out Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown as a dark-horse choice: young, African American, and from upstate. I in turn proposed ultra-dark-horse candidate DavidNYC, but I admit the odds of a second Jewish guy from New York City getting tapped to represent this state in the Senate are fairly slim.

There’s still no shortage of names out there, of course. As always, who do you think Paterson would pick, and who should he pick?

Update (James): From the NY Daily News:

Rep. Nydia Velazquez is the front-runner – for now, at least – to replace Hillary Clinton if she becomes the next secretary of state, a source close to Gov. Paterson said yesterday.

There are two other top contenders: Rep. Brian Higgins of Buffalo and Rep. Steve Israel of Long Island. Each would help Paterson with key constituencies when he makes his first run in 2010 for the post he inherited from disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer – upstaters in Higgins’ case and suburbanites in Israel’s.

Late Update (David): Looks like Clinton might actually accept, to my surprise. If true, let the games begin!