[Interesting. The same people that disapprove of his most recent flap over the Broklyn Museum by 2 to 1 give him higher approval numbers everywhere else. And its seems to have improved his numbers statewide as well. How can such high disapproval translate into increased support?
I was also kind of floored by how big Hillary's lead is over Rudy. Even cut down, it's still 51% to 31%. Statewide?? I thought upstate Republicans would hate her.]
Rudy Gains Ground
Job approval rating soars in latest poll
By DAVE SALTONSTALL
Daily News Staff Writer
[D_dc.gif] espite the furor over the Brooklyn Museum, Mayor Giuliani's
job approval rating among New Yorkers is higher now than at any time
this year, a new Sunday News poll shows.
The mayor's rating, which plummeted as low as 40% in March following
the Amadou Diallo shooting, now tops out at 54% -- a level he has not
reached since November 1998.
The turnaround also is paying dividends in his expected U.S. Senate
race against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The poll found that while Giuliani trailed the First Lady in the city
by as much as 37 points in June, he has cut that lead to just 20
points, with Clinton garnering 51% of the vote to Giuliani's 31%.
Fifteen percent remain undecided.
Part of that tightening can be credited to the natural erosion of the
First Lady's numbers following the early hype surrounding her expected
race. But the mayor also appears to be winning people back.
"It is not just that she has fallen," said pollster Mickey Blum of
Blum & Weprin Associates, the firm that conducted the poll. "He really
has made some kind of a comeback."
The city's crime rate, as well as the mayor's policies to combat
crime, appear to be important factors.
In March, for instance -- as daily protests continued over the
February police shooting of West African immigrant Diallo -- 34% of
New Yorkers said they thought the mayor's crime policies made the city
safer. A much larger 57% thought those policies interfered with the
rights of innocent people.
Now, with some indexes showing crime creeping back up in recent
months, those numbers have flipped, with 54% approving of the mayor's
crime policies and 37% expressing concern about individual rights.
The random survey of 508 New York City residents was taken Wednesday
and Thursday; it has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage
points.
"I think a lot of the police criticism came and went," said Republican
political consultant Kieran Mahoney. "The reality is that for millions
of people who walk down city streets at night, it is safe. And the
mayor gets a lot of credit for that."
Not that New Yorkers agree with Giuliani on everything.
Indeed, the same respondents who gave the mayor a 54% job approval
rating also objected to his stance against the Brooklyn Museum by a
2-to-1 ratio. But voters apparently have come to expect such responses
from Giuliani, especially on hot-button cultural issues like the
museum, while still supporting his broader policies.
"An issue like this does not surprise too many people," Blum said of
the museum flap. "It also may not be the issue that decides whether or
not they support him."
It hasn't hurt, of course, that since July the city has been hit with
a massive Con Edison blackout, Tropical Storm Floyd and West Nile
fever -- all crises that have allowed Giuliani to highlight his
commander-in-chief persona.
Whether by design or happenstance, getting back to governing the city
seems to have paid off for Giuliani.
"The mayor has soundly pursued a strategy of being as active a mayor
as he can be," said Democratic consultant Jeff Plaut. "And when he
does that, it helps."
Original Publication Date: 10/03/1999