New York voters continue to give Governor Andrew Cuomo high marks for his handling of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the state, a Siena College poll released Friday morning found.
The poll of likely voters also found Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden is, unsurprisingly, poised to handily carry New York in the presidential election over Republican incumbent President Donald Trump.
The poll comes a month before Election Day and amid concerns of an upswing in COVID-19 cases in the country. New York has seen clusters of new cases in Brooklyn and parts of the Hudson Valley. The state is now targeting with increased testing.
And Cuomo's polling numbers show little change amid criticism of the state's handling of nursing homes during the early months of the pandemic. Cuomo has said the federal government's poor response is to blame for the death toll in those facilities.
Cuomo's handling of the pandemic continues to receive support from voters, who by a margin of 73 percent to 24 percent support his handling of the situation. That includes 46 percent of Republican voters, 66 percent of independent and 71 percent of voters upstate.
His favorability rating with voters stands at 59 percent to 33 percent, a decline from 65 percent to 31 percent in June among registered voters. And his job performance rating stands at 61 percent to 38 percent, a little change from the poll of registered voters in June.
The president's handling of the virus, meanwhile, receives less support. The poll found 68 percent of voters disapprove of his pandemic response while only 27 percent approve. Among his fellow Republicans, Trump's pandemic handling stands at 58 percent in New York.
Trump early Friday morning announced he and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus.
Biden's lead over Trump in New York is a commanding one, leading him 61 percent to 29 percent. Biden leads Trump both among likely suburban voters as well as upstate voters, the poll found, where more than half support the Democratic nominee unseating the incumbent.
The poll also included minor party candidates running on the Libertarian, Green and Independence Party ballot lines.
“New Yorkers, who have not given their support to a Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan won re-election in 1984, appear poised to provide Biden with New York’s 29 Electoral College votes in less than five weeks,” said Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg.
The poll of likely New York voters was conducted from September 27 to September 29. It has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.