Has any New York mayor squandered a mandate faster than Bill de Blasio?
That’s the question raised by the latest Quinnipiac polls. Released this week, they show New Yorkers opposing him, often by a significant margin, on most every issue he has declared a top priority.
Start with the plan he made central to his mayoral bid: a tax hike on the rich, supposedly to pay for more pre-K. Voters certainly back pre-K expansion, the Q polls show. But they oppose what de Blasio seems to regard as the most important aspect of his plan — the tax — 54 percent to 35 percent.
Or take charter schools. At the same time de Blasio is moving to freeze expansion or close them down, just 14 percent want fewer charters; 40 percent of New Yorkers want more. (No surprise, given the 50,000 New Yorkers on charter waiting lists.) Even on his vow to charge some charters rent in the name of equality, more voters (47 percent) oppose him than back him (44 percent).
De Blasio’s split with voters on charters helps explain his low grades for his handling of education generally: 49 percent disapprove; only 38 percent are OK with it.
Meanwhile, he’s facing the most opposition on what he claimed just two days before his inauguration would be among his first acts: banning horse carriages. Only 24 percent agree with the mayor here, against 64 percent who disapprove.
Upshot? If the polls are to believed, after only three months, his approval rating is at 45 percent. It’s worth comparing that to the 62 percent positive rating Mike Bloomberg enjoyed at the same point in his tenure. Even in liberal New York, de Blasio can’t get a liberal majority behind him.
The polls shatter de Blasio’s claims that he’s acting on the basis of a mandate. The truth is, as we have noted before, he never really had the big mandate he claimed for his agenda: With only a quarter of eligible New Yorkers showing up Election Day, it means 81 percent of city voters did not vote for him.
Plainly the message New Yorkers are sending our mayor is this: more common sense and less ideological fervor.