The honeymoon appears to be over for Mayor Eric Adams when it comes to New Yorkers’ views on his handling of the Big Apple’s vexing crime problem, a survey released Wednesday reveals.
Crime is the top concern of 49% of city voters — more than triple the 15% of respondents who cited affordable housing and 12% homelessness, the Quinnipiac University poll found.
But a majority of Big Apple voters — 54% — now disapprove of Adams’ handling of crime, while only 37% of respondents approve.
That’s a big drop in support from a Quinnipiac survey in early February, when 35% of voters were dissatisfied and 49% gave him a thumbs-up.
Adams, a retired transit cop, made reducing crime the cornerstone of his bid for City Hall. But violent crime has mostly worsened during his four months in office.
The souring of the public perception of Adams on handling crime transcends all age groups, party affiliations and boroughs.
In the Bronx, 61% of voters rated him negatively for addressing crime and 71% of Staten Island respondents disapproved.
Among racial groups, 59% of Hispanics and 55% of whites gave Adams poor grades on crime. Black voters were split — 46% approving and 45% disapproving.
Similarly, only 43% of voters are confident that Adams will reduce gun violence in New York City (8% were very confident while 35% were somewhat confident). And 53% were either not so confident (30%) or not confident at all (23%) he could rein in the gun violence.
The mayor’s overall job approval also took a hit — with 43% of voters approving and 37% disapproving.
In Quinnipiac’s February poll, 46% of voters approved of Adams’ job as mayor while only 27% disapproved.
“Mayor Adams gets a positive score on his job performance, but it’s tepid. The biggest weight on his numbers: crime. It’s by far the most urgent issue and voters are holding him accountable,” said Quinnipiac Poll analyst Mary Snow.
She noted the survey comes on the heels of a well-publicized subway shooting while overall crime has increased.
Meanwhile, 56% of voters disapproved of Adams’ handling of the homeless problem while only 41% of respondents approved.
Other key findings:
- 86% of voters support having more police officers in the New York City subway system, while 12% oppose it.
- A majority think installing metal detectors in New York City’s subway system is a good idea.
- Nearly 7 in 10 voters think riders on buses, subways and commuter trains should be required to wear masks. An even higher number say they would wear a mask on them even without a mandate.
Amid stinging voter disapproval over his handling of crime, Adams spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Los Angeles at a technology panel discussion hosted by the Milken Institute. He was the only elected official on the panel, joined by other representatives from the financial tech world.
When asked how he got there and who paid for the flights, a City Hall rep said the mayor flew on a commercial flight — declining to identify the airline — and that the flight was not paid for by taxpayers, although the spokesman refused to say who did pay for it.
Meanwhile, the poll also found mixed grades for Schools Chancellor David Banks — 34% of voters approve of his performance, 31 percent disapprove, with the remainder having no opinion.
Adams spokesman Fabien Levy, in response to the grumpy poll findings said, “New Yorkers are rightly worried about crime, which is why public safety has been Mayor Adams’ top priority since day one.
“The mayor launched the new anti-gun unit to focus on getting dangerous guns off the streets, he helped deliver public safety reforms in Albany that many thought were impossible, and he has worked with partners in the federal government to stem the tide of dangerous guns flowing into New York City from other states.”
But the City Hall rep said “reducing crime in the city won’t happen overnight.”
“We are seeing movement and the crime numbers from yesterday reflect that with homicides, shootings, rapes, and hate crimes all down,” Levy said. “Mayor Adams is laser-focused on reversing the failures of the previous administration while fighting back against failed reforms to the state’s justice system and irresponsible laws that flood our city with out of state guns.”
Big Apple gun violence fell last month compared to April 2021, although the number of shootings was still nearly double pre-pandemic levels — and overall city crime continues to surge, NYPD data out this week shows.
Major crimes were up 34.2% overall, fueled by jumps in felony assaults, robberies, burglaries and thefts, according to the April crime statistics.
The Quinnipiac Poll, which queried 1,249 city voters from April 28 through May 2, has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.