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A solid majority of New York City residents are giving Mayor Eric Adams a thumbs up for his first two months on the job.
The Marist College poll found 61 percent of respondents approved of Adams’ performance while 24 percent disapproved with the remainder undecided.
Similarly, 62 percent of residents have a favorable opinion of Adams, a popularity that crosses all key ethnic and geographic groups across the city, according to the survey conducted between March 1 and March 8.
“Mayor Adams has broad appeal at this early point in his administration,” said Lee Miringoff, Director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.
“Unlike his predecessor [Bill de Blasio], Adams is not coming across as a polarizing figure to most city residents.”
Two-and-a-half months into his tenure, Adams gets more favorable than unfavorable marks for his handling of key issues — including crime (53 percent favorable, 35 percent unfavorable), the coronavirus pandemic (64 percent favorable, 27 unfavorable), public schools (55 percent favorable, 29 unfavorable), and the relationship between police and the community (61 percent favorable, 27 percent unfavorable).
But it wasn’t all roses.
Only 38 percent of residents rated him as a good or excellent mayor, 37 percent as fair and 14 percent poor.
In a bit of a contradiction, people who view him as “fair” approve of the job he is doing as mayor by a better than 2-to-1 margin.
Adams’ rating among registered voters is comparable to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first score (39 percent) after taking office. However, he underperforms the ratings of previous mayors — Michael Bloomberg (50 percent), Rudy Giuliani (51 percent), and David Dinkins (56 percent) — at the start of their administrations.
Still, 72 percent of city residents say Adams understands the problems facing New York City, 66 percent think he cares about people, and a similar 64 percent report he is a good leader for New York City.
A majority — 55 percent – Adams is making New York City a safer place to live despite the actual surge in crime.
Despite mostly high marks, only 47 percent of city residents think he is changing the Big Apple for the better. Eight percent say he is changing it for the worse while 34 percent think he is not having any impact on the city.
Adams does better on the changing New York City question than did de Blasio shortly after he took office in 2014. Forty three percent of registered voters said he was having a positive effect, 20 percent said they thought he had a negative impact on the city and 25 percent thought he was not making a difference.
About half of respondents — 49 percent — said the city is moving in the right direction, while 43 percent report it is moving in the wrong one.
On other issues, 79 percent of residents were optimistic that the city has moved past the coronavirus pandemic.
This survey of 891 adults was conducted March 1st through March 8th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
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