A new poll found that a majority of Democrats want to dump presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
According to a national poll reported by the New York Post on Friday, 56% of Democrats say they would prefer the New York governor over the former vice president as the Democratic presidential nominee to face off against President Trump in November. Twelve percent fewer, 44%, say they would prefer sticking with Biden. That gap, the New York Post points out, is well beyond the poll’s margin of error, which is 4.8%.
“Hispanic voters, young people, women and self-identified liberals are most likely to favor dumping the former vice president for Cuomo,” the outlet reports.
“With every major news event, Democrats realize more and more how bad of a candidate Joe Biden is, and Democrats now preferring Cuomo is just another example,” said Joe Kildea, vice president of communications for the Club for Growth, the conservative pro-market group that commissioned Republican polling firm WPAi to conduct the poll.
The poll was conducted online April 3-6 and involved around 1,000 respondents, 361 of which were Democrats, 349 Republicans and 262 Independents.
The survey asked respondents: “Based on what you know today, do you agree or disagree that Democrats should nominate Governor Andrew Cuomo for president instead of Joe Biden?”
“Among people of any party — including independents — who voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, the percentage favoring Cuomo increased to 57 percent,” the Post reports. “Of those who voted for President Trump in 2016, 53 percent wanted Democrats to keep Biden.”
“Among black voters — who helped Biden defeat Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders — 55 percent favored Cuomo, with just 45 percent wanting to keep Biden,” the Post notes. “Among voters age 25 to 34 of any party, preference for Cuomo hit 67 percent. Fifty-seven percent of all women and 58 percent of Hispanic voters preferred Cuomo.”
The two candidates were about evenly favored among whites and people with college and graduate degrees.
The Post also points out that Cuomo denied “thinking about” running for president just last month. “With all of this adulation you’re getting for doing your job, are you thinking about running for president?” CNN host Chris Cuomo asked his brother in late March. “No, no,” said the governor.
Another recent poll, by Rasmussen, asked a similar question and found that Democratic voters were evenly split on preferring Biden (46%) versus Cuomo (45%).
While Cuomo has received a lot of positive press over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, a recent report by The New York Times detailed the significant failures of both Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) in the initial stages of the pandemic. Titled “How Delays and Unheeded Warnings Hindered New York’s Virus Fight,” the report contends that while the federal response was “chaotic,” “even so, the state’s and city’s own efforts failed to keep pace with the outbreak,” ultimately resulting in New York becoming the nation’s COVID-19 epicenter. Many of the Times’ own readers thanked the paper for finally calling out the Democratic leaders after weeks of directing blame to Trump.