Sixty percent of registered voters in New York approve of the job Governor Andrew Cuomo is doing, a Marist College released on Thursday found. 

The job performance approval is the highest score Cuomo has received in the poll since taking office in 2011 and is a sharp increase from a 38 percent approval rating in March 2019. 

Twenty-nine percent of voters believe Cuomo is doing an excellent job as governor, 31 percent say he is doing a good job. 

The poll, sponsored by NBC 4 New York, comes after Cuomo has been the public face of the coronavirus response in New York. Regionally he is most popular in New York City, where 67 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing; 55 percent of upstate voters polled say he is doing a good or excellent job. 

“New Yorkers are responding in a very positive way to Governor Cuomo’s leadership during this unprecedented time,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, the director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “Cuomo has been able to govern in a convincing way both on COVID-19 and the economy.”

Voters are not as pleased with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's performance during the pandemic, with 42 percent of voters statewide approving, 44 percent of voters disapproving. 

As officials discuss reopening schools in the coming weeks, half of New York residents say it is a bad idea to fully reopen public schools for in-classroom instruction, while 40 percent back the idea. Ten percent remain unsure. 

The poll of 586 registered voters was conducted from July 6 through July 8 and has a margin of error of 4.7 percentage points.

Crosstabs can be found here.