ALBANY – Gov. Paterson’s tough talk about slashing state spending in the wake of the Wall Street meltdown is paying off. A poll out yesterday gave him a record-high approval rating -and showed he’d beat former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in a gubernatorial election.
The Siena College survey, however, found Paterson would lose a one-on-one contest to Mayor Bloomberg, but such a race would be tighter than previous polls have shown.
The new poll found that New York voters, by 62 to 19 percent, have a favorable impression of Paterson, the first time since he succeeded the disgraced Eliot Spitzer in March that his rating has topped 60 percent.
Last month a Siena poll found Paterson’s favorable/unfavorable rating to be 59 to 13 percent. Paterson – who has warned that a looming, $12 billion-plus deficit will force the state to sharply tighten its fiscal belt – was viewed favorably in all parts of the state, including traditionally Republican upstate, where he had a positive 61-to-18 percent ratio.
His highest rating was in heavily Democratic New York City, 67 to 18 percent favorable, while in the suburbs, he was rated 57 percent favorable and 24 percent unfavorable.
Paterson’s job-approval rating was also at an all-time high, with 55 percent of voters giving him an excellent (7 percent) or good (48 percent) performance grade.
Thirty-five percent rated his job performance as “fair,” and 5 percent “poor.”
“While bad economic news and tough fiscal talk by chief executives do not always play well with voters, the more he talks about the economy and the budget, the more voters seem to be embracing what the governor is saying,” said Siena spokesman Steve Greenberg.
Paterson, who was elected as Spitzer’s lieutenant governor, has announced he’ll seek a full four-year term in 2010, when Republicans hope Bloomberg or Giuliani will run against him.
The Siena poll found Bloomberg, who got the City Council go-ahead last week to seek a third four-year term next year, would be the stronger opponent against Paterson, leading 47 to 43 percent, with 10 percent undecided.
The poll found the popular Bloomberg crushing Paterson in the suburbs, 65 to 26 percent, beating him in the city, 48 to 44 percent, but losing to the governor upstate, 54 to 34 percent.
Paterson would crush Giuliani in the city, 61 to 30 percent, and beat him upstate, 49 to 41 percent, while the former mayor and failed presidential candidate would win the suburbs, 53 to 41 percent, according to the poll.
The poll also found that voters throughout the state, like those in the city, favor term limits, and, by 58 to 37 percent, want an eight-year limit for the governor and members of the Legislature.
The poll found New Yorkers increasingly pessimistic about the state’s economic outlook, with 76 percent of voters saying they agree with Paterson’s contention that the problems facing the state are the worst since the Great Depression.
Meanwhile, the poll found Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama poised for a landslide, 62 to 31 percent, win in New York over Republican John McCain.