On "Forbes Newsroom," Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling, spoke about a new Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill poll on the New York City mayoral race that shows former Governor Andrew Cuomo's lead widening in the Democratic primary.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now
00:08is Matt Taglia, senior director of Emerson College Polling. Matt, thanks so much for
00:12coming back on.
00:15Thanks for having me.
00:16Emerson College Polling picks 11 and the Hill have a new poll out all about New York City's
00:22mayoral race. Start off the conversation. What are some of your takeaways?
00:27Yeah, I think the major takeaway here is that Cuomo is still in a solid lead against
00:36a fairly crowded field. We do see a couple of candidates or at least one candidate moving
00:42up a little bit in the ranks. But whether or not that will actually make a difference
00:48in this ranked choice voting system, that remains to be seen.
00:52I think what's interesting when you hear about former Governor Andrew Cuomo, this is
00:57really a political comeback we haven't seen since now President Donald Trump, because
01:02as we remember, he faced parallel lines of scandal. He was involved or his administration
01:08caught flak about how he handled covid, especially in nursing homes. He also resigned after facing
01:14a flurry of sexual harassment allegations. So what demos exactly are supporting former
01:21Cuomo?
01:23Yeah, great question, Brittany. So we see in this poll that Cuomo has 38 percent support
01:30among these primary voters. Now, I do want to caution, you know, this is not a simulation
01:35of New York City's ranked choice voting. We will get there closer to the election.
01:41And then we see Mamdani at 10 percent and second place with 17 percent undecided.
01:47When you look at the support for Cuomo, we see that it really scales with age,
01:52with older voters supporting Cuomo in higher numbers than younger voters. However, he has
01:58plurality support among all of these demographics. You also look at more diverse voters like Blacks
02:05and Hispanics, and we see fairly strong pluralities for Cuomo there. So he really is
02:12running the gamut as far as the demographics he would want to win in this vote.
02:19I'm sure as a politician, what you want to see in polls is yourself gaining momentum. And we
02:24see that with Governor Cuomo from February now to March. He's gained momentum in this poll.
02:30Anyone else gaining momentum and arguably just as important, who's losing support?
02:36Yeah, so we see Mamdani with 10 percent, and I believe he was in single digits in our poll from
02:42earlier this year. And we see that that's mostly due to under 40 voters. Now, that's not to say
02:50that he is winning these voters outright or that they are a monolith in any way. Again, Cuomo draws
02:56some pretty sizable numbers from these voters. But we have seen, you know, over the past few
03:03weeks even, that his campaign has been attracting more attention, more funding. It's especially
03:09been driven by some of these younger voters. I think he needs to consolidate that vote more so
03:14than right now in order to have a shot at this and to hopefully rein in some of that second place
03:22support once it comes down to the ranked choice system. You look at the rest of the field and
03:30you look at the rest of the field and most of the other candidates are either where they were
03:36in February or they have lost a little bit of steam compared to Cuomo and Mamdani. And then
03:45we also see Undecided here is at about 17 percent. That's down significantly as well. And so we're
03:52starting to see folks start to make up their minds and a lot of them are breaking for Cuomo here.
03:59I'm curious about incumbent Mayor Eric Adams.
04:03What do New Yorkers think about him? Where is he in this poll?
04:10And he is one who has lost some steam since our last poll. He's now at eight percent. He was
04:15previously, I believe, at 10 percent. So only a slight drop. But if I'm the incumbent mayor of
04:21New York City and I'm running in this primary, I really want to see that number tick up and not
04:26down. We also see that Adams has fairly abysmal approval here. Eighteen percent of New Yorkers
04:35approve of his job performance versus 66 percent who disapprove. That is worse than Donald Trump's
04:43approval in New York City. He is at 27 percent support approve, 66 percent disapprove.
04:51I cannot think of a worse place to be than Eric Adams is at this point in terms of running for
04:57reelection. And we'll talk more about Mayor Eric Adams in a second. But I'm thinking about New York
05:03City, A, because I live there, B, we're talking about it. And it's a it's a blue city. It is a
05:09liberal city. It did go a little more for Trump than in past years, but it's still a reliably
05:14blue city. As of now, Cuomo has a comfortable lead. We know anything can change in politics.
05:19But let's say he does win the primary here. Does a Republican have a shot against Governor Cuomo?
05:28So I'd say probably not. When we look at the general election test in this poll,
05:34we use some hypothetical candidates here. So Cuomo hypothetically would receive 43 percent.
05:40Curtis Silva hypothetically at 13 percent. And then if we add Adams into the mix as an independent,
05:47he receives 11 percent of the vote. And then Jim Walden as an independent,
05:51with four percent and twenty nine percent undecided. So, you know, I don't see any
05:56signs there that a Republican has a shot. If we look at the demographics, Cuomo receives
06:04highest support across the board. He really runs the gamut here in terms of the demographics.
06:09I don't see any sort of indication really that there's a taste for a Republican mayor in this
06:16poll. And frankly, I don't expect that to change much over the coming months.
06:21Mayor Eric Adams has been embattled since he was faced with allegations that he accepted
06:27bribes from the Turkish government. He also has mixed reviews for saying that he was working with
06:32the Trump administration. He's working specifically with Border Czar Tom Homan.
06:37When it comes to immigration, when it comes to ICE, people accused him of quid pro quo. He was
06:41sitting on the Fox and Friends couch for 20 minutes with Tom Homan in an interview saying
06:46exactly how he's going to cooperate with the Trump administration on the border on immigration.
06:52Do New York City residents want to see a mayor that's working with the Trump administration,
06:56or do they want to see a mayor working against the Trump administration,
07:00maybe standing up for more democratic beliefs?
07:03Yeah. And New York voters want to see a mayor who will stand up to the Trump administration.
07:09Sixty-three percent say they want the next mayor to stand up more so than work with the Trump
07:16administration. And then when you look specifically at immigration and New York City status as a
07:22sanctuary city, 46 percent, so a plurality, say that New York City should remain a sanctuary city.
07:31And all age groups here agree, a plurality at least agree. We see the highest support for
07:37sanctuary city status among under 40-year-olds and over 70-year-olds. And that's at about 50
07:45percent for each of those demographics. So I think that there is broad agreement here.
07:49They don't want the mayor working with the Trump administration, and they do support New York City's
07:55and they do support New York City's status as a sanctuary city for immigrants.
08:02New York City's an interesting city in the sense that most people rely on the subway to get in and
08:09around, up and down. I know I'm on four different trains a day, at least Monday through Friday. So
08:15I do know voters in New York City that subway safety, they're one issue voters, and that issue
08:22is subway safety. What issues specifically matter to New York City residents?
08:29Yeah, and if we talk about the subway specifically, you know, 48 percent say that it's becoming less
08:35safe. And there was very little daylight between demographics there. Now, that's not necessarily
08:41to say that the subway is their top priority. About a third say that they want the next mayor
08:49to focus mostly on crime and public safety. And then 23 percent say housing. 10 percent want that
08:57mayor to focus on the migrant crisis. There is a little bit of difference here between age groups
09:05and other folks, but I think the takeaway is that younger voters are much more likely to say that
09:12they want the mayor to focus on housing and housing affordability. So a plurality agree
09:19that housing is their top issue for the next mayor. I don't know if we see that reflected in the mayoral
09:26top lines here, but that seems to be top of mind for these younger voters. I've had a lot of
09:31conversations with city council members, with everyday New Yorkers, with economists about New
09:37York City's congestion pricing. It went into effect at the beginning of January. Even President
09:42Trump has weighed in on this. It costs drivers nine dollars during peak hours if they enter the
09:48city below 60th Street in Manhattan. What do voters think about congestion pricing?
09:55Yeah, and voters are split on congestion pricing. We've seen this before, but here it is very much
10:02split down the middle. 44 percent want to get rid of congestion pricing versus 42 percent who want
10:08to keep it. Slightly higher rates of older voters want to keep congestion pricing, but what I think
10:15is really interesting is that minority voters are far more likely to want to get rid of congestion
10:23pricing in New York City. So that's not to say that it is unpopular, but we see this as very
10:31much split down the middle. There's not too many differences here, but those white voters
10:38want to keep congestion pricing in place. Minority voters are far less likely to want to keep it.
10:46Cuomo has the lead here, followed by undecided in second place. We know that the primary is in June,
10:53so if I'm Governor Cuomo and I'm seeing number two is undecided, does that make me feel better
10:59or worse? What do you think? I think that that's making me feel much better. Being in this spot,
11:07having a plurality of the vote, and really not seeing my vote share fall month to month or week
11:14to week, and without a single real challenger in second place, you know, that's exactly where I
11:23would want to be. I think that his campaign is in very good shape as things stand. If I were him,
11:30I would hope for really little media attention, you know, ride in on high name ID, but I don't
11:39think that he's necessarily going to get that wish. I think especially in an off election year,
11:43there's going to be quite a bit of media attention, but he's probably pretty happy having that
11:48undecided number in second place right now. Well, thank you so much for your numbers, and as you
11:53continue to take more polls, I really hope we continue our many conversations. Matt Taglia,
11:59thanks so much for joining me. Thanks so much for having me, Brittany.