According to a Siena poll out today, Governor Paterson’s approval numbers were down to 29 percent again this month. The number of New York voters who viewed him favorably had climbed over the summer to a high of 36 percent in July, when he was seen to be battling greed and stupidity in the State Senate. But it dropped again this fall — and, unfortunately for Paterson, it’s likely to go even lower. The poll was taken from September 13 to 17, several days before President Obama made headlines with his reported request that the New York governor step out of the 2010 race. That news will no doubt further wound the reputation of Paterson, who maintains he’s still running.
The Siena poll indicates, as have previous ones, that Paterson is coming from the weaker position in a potential match-up with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. But in a hypothetical match, Giuliani loses out to Andrew Cuomo, according to this poll, by 52 percent to 39 percent. “Nearly half of all voters prefer that Rudy Giuliani not run for Governor or Senator in 2010,” said pollster Steven Greenberg, who added that even fewer than half of Republicans as a group want him to run for office in the state again.
