ALBANY – New York voters still love Gov. Cuomo, but not his plan to build the nation’s largest convention center at Aqueduct Race Track.
A Siena College poll released today shows voters giving Cuomo his best job performance rating since he took office 13 months ago, 62-37 percent, with an overall favorability rating of 73-20 percent – topping 70 percent in every region of the state and with stronger ratings from Republicans than independent voters.
And for the first time since November 2006, a majority of voters thinks the state is headed on the right track, the survey found.
A majority, 51 percent, also said Albany is considerably less dysfunctional than before Cuomo took office, while 45 percent said it’s still too dysfunctional.
But by 53-42 percent, voters gave thumbs down on gaming giant Genting’s plan to invest $4 billion to build a 3.8 million square-foot convention center at Aqueduct – though the poll did not indicate that the Cuomo-backed plan would be privately funded.
Genting’s plan does depend on the state allowing it to expand its racino at the track, Cuomo said.
He predicted voters will be “overwhelmingly supportive” when they understand that “this is not the state building a convention center at all, this is a highly successful private sector company that does this all around the globe, exquisitely well, building a center with their money that is going to create jobs for New Yorkers and revenue for New Yorkers.”
The company ultimately hopes to turn the racino into a full-fledged casino if New York legalizes gambling – a move survey respondents supported 57-38 percent.
New York City voters were barely supportive of the convention center plan, suburbanites were opposed and upstaters strongly opposed in the Jan. 8-12 telephone poll of 805 registered voters, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
“Clearly, the Governor has his work cut out for him to convince voters on that proposal,” said poll spokesman Steven Greenberg.
As Cuomo prepares to tackle the controversial issue of teacher evaluations in the face of the threatened loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal aid, 51 percent supported his declaration that he will be the lobbyist for New York’s students, while 45 percent called the claim “grandstanding” – including a majority from union households.
Still, Cuomo has strong support for his proposals for an education commission to deal with the issue. Poll respondents also voiced strong support for Cuomo’s campaign finance reform agenda – which includes taxpayer financing and lower contribution limits – and for his plan to create public-private partnerships to pay for infrastructure projects.
Voters were nearly evenly divided over Cuomo’s 2012 State of the State call for eliminating fingerprinting for food stamp recipients with children, with Republicans and suburbanites strongly opposed and Democrats, independents, upstaters and New York City voters closely divided.
Respondents rated last month’s revision of the state income tax code to raise rates on millionaires while lowering them modestly for many middle-class taxpayers as Cuomo’s and lawmakers’ top accomplishment last year by 34 percent, edging out 2011’s on-time budget with no new taxes at 31 percent. Legalization of gay marriage won the support of 17 percent as the top accomplishment, with 11 percent identifying the property tax cap and 3 percent the new ethics law.
By better than two-to-one, 60-28 percent, voters think Cuomo should veto any redistricting plan put forward by the Legislature.
Meantime President Obama’s favorability rating continued to climb among New York voters, rising to 59-38 percent from 57-40 percent in November and 52-45 percent in August, the poll showed.
But he still had a negative job performance rating among New York voters, 53-46 percent. Yet 55 percent said they’re prepared to re-elect Obama while just 40 percent prefer “someone else,” up from 51-42 percent in November and 47-45 percent in August.