NEW YORK — New York City voters are furious with Mayor Eric Adams over his alignment with President Donald Trump on immigration policy, and giving former Gov. Andrew Cuomo an early, commanding lead in the race to replace him, a new poll finds.
The mayor holds a meager 20 percent approval with registered voters in the nation’s largest city — an all-time low, according to Quinnipiac University’s poll released Wednesday.
The Democrat has been fighting corruption charges and resisting calls for his resignation after Trump’s Justice Department ordered a judge to drop his case, seemingly in concert with his help on carrying out the president’s aggressive immigration strategy.
Adams’ attorney has denied the now-resigned acting prosecutor’s accusations of a quid pro quo, but the political damage is inarguable in a Democratic primary, and the latest poll underscores that.
More than half of voters, 56 percent, believe Adams should resign. And a majority want him to stand up to the president on immigration. Trump remains unpopular in the deep blue city, with a 30 percent job approval rating. He is almost universally unpopular with Democrats in the city, as 91 percent disapprove of the president. The mayor will have to persuade those Democratic voters if he wants to win a closed June 24 party primary.
That is proving an early test for Cuomo as well. The former governor declined to go after Trump in his first interview on the campaign trail this week, prompting immediate backlash from his left-of-center rivals.
Adams spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus touted the mayor’s record without addressing the poll’s results.
“The mayor ran to make our city safer and more affordable, and we’re doing that every day — the facts do not lie. Mayor Adams and his administration will continue to deliver for New Yorkers every day as we make our city the best place to raise a family,” she said.
The Quinnipiac University survey is the first since Cuomo’s weekend entrance into the race and did not include a ranked choice voting simulation. The relatively new method of determining local elections in New York City allows voters to select up to five candidates in order of preference. The share of votes for the lower-ranked candidates get redistributed as they get eliminated until someone crosses the 50 percent threshold.
The survey was conducted between Feb. 27 — two days before Cuomo entered the race — and March 3.
It underscores the deep political hole the first-term mayor is in and his extraordinarily narrow path to reelection. Cuomo led the field with 31 percent of voters’ backing, followed by Adams at 11 percent. Support for the remaining candidates or potential challengers is in single digits.
A spokesperson for Cuomo declined to comment.
Illustrative of the moderate Adams’ woes with his own party: 35 percent of Republican voters — who cannot vote in the Democratic Party primary — believe the mayor is doing a good job; only 15 percent of Democrats hold that view. And Adams’ crucial support from fellow Black New Yorkers has eroded, with 60 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing.
As Adams sought help with his legal case he began courting Trump, dining with him in Florida and attending his inauguration in January. Along the way he offered support for certain federal immigration efforts, a posture opposed by voters, with 56 percent wanting him to stand up to Trump on the issue. Only 33 percent of voters want the mayor to do more to work with the president on immigration. Trump has a 65 percent disapproval rating with New York City voters — including 81 percent of Black residents.
Cuomo, too, has refrained from attacking Trump in the days since joining the race, despite previously sparring with Trump over Covid-19.
Big Apple voters are also split over Trump’s handling of the controversial Manhattan toll program known as congestion pricing. Voters oppose the $9 toll plan 54 percent to 41 percent, but they are evenly divided over the president’s push to rescind federal approval of the poll plan.
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