Mayor Bill de Blasio has a 39% job approval rating from city voters after two months in office, a Wall Street Journal/NBC 4 New York/Marist poll showed Thursday.
By contrast, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg received a 50% job approval rating at the same point in his tenure, according to a March 2002 Marist poll.
De Blasio’s favorability rating at 59% is much stronger than his job approval.
“There’s a huge number of people who like him, feel comfortable with him, but they’re not convinced that he’s being effective at this point as mayor,” Marist poll director Lee Miringoff said.
For its latest poll, Marist surveyed 586 registered voters in New York City between Feb. 27 and Tuesday. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
In response to the poll, a de Blasio spokeswoman said the mayor has focused his first two months on “building, running and changing the direction of the government.” She also stressed the higher favorability rating.
“The majority of New Yorkers approve of the direction he’s taking the city,” she said in a statement.
Fifty-six percent of voters approved of de Blasio’s snowstorm management, but 50% said he didn’t properly handle the decision on whether to shutter schools.
The poll found that black and Latino voters rated de Blasio higher than white voters.
It showed 52% of voters have a favorable view of de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, who is also a prominent adviser.
Also Thursday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan joined de Blasio on a visit with preschoolers in the Bronx to promote universal prekindergarten but declined to choose sides in the mayor’s battle with Gov. Andrew Cuomo over how to fund it.
“All I’m grateful for is that we’ve got leaders — Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo — who are passionate about this,” Dolan said. “How it’s going to be done, how it’s going to be funded, I leave it up to them.”
De Blasio wants Albany to approve a city tax on incomes above $500,000 to pay for citywide pre-K. Cuomo wants statewide pre-K using a state budget surplus
Dolan and de Blasio, appearing at a news conference at St. Francis of Assisi School in Wakefield, said parochial schools would join public schools and community-based organizations in providing pre-K space and teachers.
The Archdiocese of New York, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island;and the Diocese of Brooklyn, which also serves Queens, together have 17,000 new seats ready for the fall.
