🎶“Baby come back, any kind of fool could see there was something in everything about you.”🎶A new poll says 67 percent of New York City voters support Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s attempts to convince Amazon to not abandon its HQ2 plans in Long Island City.
The poll released by Quinnipiac University on Wednesday paints a very different picture than that of activists, community groups and city lawmakers whose boisterous disapproval of the project contributed to the e-retailer’s decision to no longer pursue a headquarters in the borough. In the fallout, New York City lost a guaranteed 25,000 high-paying jobs.
Those who opposed Amazon’s HQ2 largely took issue with the $3 billion tax incentive package the company received from the city and state as well as the retailer’s refusal to allow workers to unionize. They also raised critical community issues related to a lack of infrastructure and gentrification.
The opposition, however, appears to have been loud but few. Not only do a majority of city voters feel the billions in tax incentives were worth the jobs Amazon had promised in the deal (59-31 percent), they also would support offering similar benefits to lure other businesses to the area (55-34 percent), according to the poll.
Statewide polling found similar results, with a majority of voters supporting Cuomo’s efforts as well as Amazon’s tax incentive package and offering incentives to other companies.
“New York State voters to Amazon: ‘Can you deliver a second chance?’ In hindsight, New Yorkers think those hotly debated incentives offered to Amazon were worth it in the end,” Mary Snow, polling analyst for the Quinnipiac University Poll, said.
While anti-Amazon activists and politicians rejoiced when HQ2 was canceled, Cuomo was quick to blame Democratic lawmakers for ruining the project and costing the city thousands of jobs. The governor has said he tried to convince the company to come back — going as far as signing an open letter to CEO Jeff Bezos — but has also admitted the odds are slim.
In a Siena Research Institute survey released on Monday, a majority of Republican, third-party and independent voters blamed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for losing the Amazon deal, even though the Democrat had no actual role in the project or its future. Thirty-six percent of Democrats in the poll blamed Amazon.
