In a new Siena College poll, the majority of New York State voters said they were happy with how Governor Andrew Cuomo has handled the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.
According to the results, 67 percent felt that the governor has done an excellent or good job, 22 percent said he has done a fair job and seven percent said he’s done a poor job.
In New York City, a slightly higher percentage, 70 percent, gave Cuomo a high rating.
In an effort to help with Sandy relief, the governor is travelling to Washington D.C. today to lobby for about $42 billion that the state needs to recover from the storm and protect itself from the next significant weather event.
State voters were almost as pleased with how President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg handled the superstorm.
Sixty-one percent said that Obama did an excellent or good job and 55 percent gave Bloomberg the same rating.
In a Quinnipiac University poll from two weeks ago, New York City voters thought that Obama did a better job than Governor Cuomo, but gave him higher marks than Bloomberg.
But in the same poll, voters also rated New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s handling of the storm and its aftermath higher than all three politicians.
The Siena poll did not ask state voters about Christie.
It did, however, ask about the utility companies, FEMA and the MTA.
The majority of voters were pleased with FEMA and the Metropolitan Transit Agency, but gave Con Edison mixed ratings.
Forty-nine percent said that Con Ed did a good or excellent job, while 29 percent said the utility did a fair job and 15 percent gave it a poor rating.
Voters were not as happy with the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA), which has received criticism on how it has responded to the storm.
Only one in six Long Islanders said LIPA did an excellent or good job with post-Sandy power problems, and 60 percent said it performed poorly.
The poll also asked about other aspects of Sandy, including how the storm affected voters—from home and business damage to school closings and power outages.
“Nearly one in seven voters suffered damage to their home, including one-quarter of downstate suburbanites. More than one-third lost their power, including more than eight in ten suburbanites. And more than two-thirds of New Yorkers saw their schools close for at least a day, and one-third had schools closed for at least a week,” said Siena pollster Steven Greenberg “Not in a very long time has a natural disaster directly affected more New Yorkers than Sandy.
Additionally, the poll found that more than half of New Yorkers have made a financial contribution to a charitable organization raising money for those affected by Sandy, and 26 percent have volunteered their time.
The storm may have also forced New Yorkers to take global warming more seriously.
Because of Sandy and other significant storms from the last couple of years, 69 percent believe that they climate change is real.
