Family Life

03.05.12 | Bob Price

The Siena College poll shows the Democrat still has a 69 percent favorability rating, down from 74 percent last month. Fifty-seven percent give him a positive job performance rating, down from 61 percent in February.

Most New Yorkers felt Cuomo's efforts either "had no effect" on or made worse ethical standards in Albany, the state's fiscal condition, pride in New York, the business climate, and the quality of roads, bridges and education.

The Siena poll's Steven Greenberg said he believes voters were giving Cuomo "an incomplete" when they said stated the "governor's efforts have had no effect" on the key issues.

"The jury is still out, he's been governor for 14 months," Greenberg said. "You don't change the world in a year. I don't think that's a negative number."

According to the poll:

-47 percent said Cuomo had no effect on everyday economic conditions that affect all New Yorkers, while 30 percent said he made it better and 20 percent said he made conditions worse;

-55 percent said he had no effect on roads and bridges, 26 percent said he improved infrastructure, and 15 percent said he made infrastructure worse;

-41 percent said he made the fiscal condition of New York better, while 40 percent said he had no effect and 15 percent said he made it worse;

-41 percent said he improved the ethical standards of state government, 39 percent said he had no effect, and 14 percent said he made ethics more of a problem;

- 22 percent said Cuomo improved the quality of education statewide, 45 percent said he had no effect, and 27 percent said he "made it more of a problem."

Cuomo has said his negotiation of a statewide teacher evaluation system that included student performance on standardized tests was a key element of his second year. The deal was announced just a week before the polling began. The teacher evaluations were negotiated with unions representing more than 220,000 public school teachers statewide who had previously opposed statewide evaluations, calling tests unfair and inaccurate measures of teachers' abilities.

Greenberg also discounted Cuomo's fall in favorability and job performance, noting Cuomo had a similar decline in March 2011. Cuomo's lowest favorability was 68 percent, in June 2011, and he's hit 69 percent twice before, last year. Cuomo's job approval has been over 50 percent since the 44 percent level when he took office in January 2011.

"It's not a dramatic drop," Greenberg said.

Cuomo had no immediate comment.

The poll questioned 808 registered voters by telephone from Feb. 26 to Feb. 29 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.