In a somewhat unexpected turn, President Donald Trump has a higher favorable rating in New York than New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
A Sienna College poll from last week found that 29% of New Yorkers polled had a favorable view of de Blasio, while 34% had a favorable view of Trump.
While these numbers seem good or at least interesting for the current president, his unfavorable rating in the state is not. De Blasio had a 53% unfavorability rating, up from 50% in April, according to the New York Post. Trump, meanwhile, holds a 63% unfavorability rating, up from 59% in April.
Further, the poll found that even though New Yorkers don’t like de Blasio, they would still vote for him over Trump, 48% to 36%, in a head-to-head election. The most popular of the New York politicians currently running for president (or re-election) is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who, despite taking three months to qualify for the first debate and not even registering on many polls, has a 44% favorability rating in the Empire State.
Gillibrand would also beat Trump in New York if the election were held today, 58% to 34%.
“New York Democrats strongly prefer the hometown senator over the hometown mayor. Gillibrand would easily best de Blasio in every region of the state, including New York City, where she beats him 56-29 percent,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said in a statement about the poll. “Blue New York shows no interest in supporting the incumbent Republican President for re-election.”
And that’s the big takeaway. It’s certainly interesting that New Yorkers gave Trump a higher favorability rating than de Blasio (probably because much of New York outside of the Big Apple is actually red) even though Trump would still lose the state to whichever Democrat wins the primary. And that is never going to change.
New York is a Deep Blue state. The population centered in New York City makes it so. Trump is never going to win the state or even come close to doing so.
This poll also does nothing for de Blasio nationally. He was already polling around 0, so the fact that people in his own home state don’t like him all that much isn’t going to hurt his chances any more. A recent poll from Iowa, the first primary state, found that de Blasio was absolutely no one’s first or second choice for president from the massive list of Democrats running in the primary. De Blasio and Miramar, Florida Mayor Wayne Messam were the only two that received no first- or second-choice votes. It was a pretty stunning feat for de Blasio, since the mayor of New York City tends to have pretty decent name recognition. Few people outside of that area in Florida have heard of Messam.
It must be embarrassing for the Democratic candidates who typically get so much media coverage — such as de Blasio or Gillibrand — to be doing so poorly in the Democratic Party primary.