Latinos and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio

Results from the May 24, 2016 Quinnipiac Poll

By Angelo Falcón

The NiLP Report

The current Quinnipiac Poll has found NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio with his lowest approval ratings to date and with a slight majority feeling he does not deserve reelection. This poll, mired in a series of investigations into his fundraising practices, resurrects the notion that he could be a "One Term Mayor" and explores the viability of potential contenders for this post within the Democratic Party. In this regard, the role of the Latino and Black votes, which provided De Blasio's margin of victory in 2013 need to be examined closely. The pattern so far has been one in which Whites have been consistently negative toward the Mayor while Blacks and Latinos have been supportive. These polls, unfortunately, do not include enough Asians to include them in their findings.

Does Mayor de Blasio Disserve Reelection?

In a City Hall rally in November 2014, hundreds of Latino community leaders and activists protested the lack of Latino appointments by Mayor de Blasio to hi Administration. This was perhaps the first time that the chant "One Term Mayor" was heard regarding de Blasio.

According to the May 23, 2016, Quinnipiac Poll, 52 percent of New Yorkers polled believe that Mayor de Blasio does not deserve reelection. This is overwhelmingly the opinion of Whites in contrast to that of Blacks and Latinos. However, while de Blasio has maintained strong support among Blacks, his support among Latinos has declined significantly. While 59 percent of Black support his reelection, only 48 percent of Latinos do (and 43 percent do not).

Given that his margin of victory in 2013 came from the strong support he received from Blacks and Latino communities, this weakening of Mayor de Blasio's Black-Latino coalition, coupled with strong White opposition, does not bode well electorally for the Mayor at this point. His erosion of Latino support, however, has been limited and is clearly recoverable depending on the quality of his outreach to this community in the next year and a half before the next Mayoral election.

Potential Opponents?

The Quinnipiac Poll matched Mayor de Blasio up with three of his potential rivals for office --- Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer. In all three cases, Mayor de Blasio's strongest challengers were Adams and Stringer, with whom he was in a statistical tie, followed by Diaz, who was five percentage points behind him.

Regarding the Latino vote, Diaz, who is Puerto Rican, is in a statistical tie with de Blasio. The Mayor loses readily amount White votes and wins handily among Black voters when pitted against Diaz. Diaz's level of support was highest and the same with Latinos and Whites.

Regarding Eric Adams, who is African-American, he is ahead of de Blasio with White voters but trails with both Blacks and Latinos. While Black support for Adams was 28 percent, this was significantly lower than the 37 percent support Diaz received from Latino voters. With stronger Black support it is clear that Adams would have received higher overall support over the Mayor.

Scott Stringer, who is White, also does well overall again de Blasio but is weakest among Black and Latino voters. His support among White voters is huge, 51 percent against only 2 percent for de Blasio.

Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo Approval

With both the Mayor and Governor in the midst of corruption investigations, the Quinnipiac Poll examined their impact on their favorability ratings. This poll found Mayor de Blasio's favorability to be at an all-time low, with only 42 percent of those surveyed viewing him favorably. However, this low favorability rating is driven mostly by White opinion of the Mayor, which was only 27 percent favorable, compared to 63 percent of Blacks and 55 percent of Latinos.

Along these same lines, Mayor de Blasio's job approval ratings were also low at 41 percent. This was driven as well by White disapproval of the job he is doing as Mayor, with only 27 percent of Whites approving, compared to 5 percent of Blacks and 55 percent of Latinos.

Despite sharing a corruption cloud overhead, Governor Cuomo's job approval ratings were high compared to Mayor de Blasio. His lowest approval came from Whites, but that was at 50 percent, and the highest among Blacks (68 percent) and Latinos (58 percent).

NYC Latino Leadership

The Quinnipiac Poll also examined the favorability and approval ratings of key Latino city officials --- Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito, and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

Diaz, who has emerged as a potential Mayoral candidate opposing Mayor de Blasio, has raised his public profile lately as a critic of the Mayor on housing and other issues, and as an ally of Governor Andrew Cuomo. While he is seen very favorably among those who indicated they have heard of him, is biggest challenges politically regarding seeking citywide offices is the high percent of New Yorkers ho indicate they haven't heard enough of him. As one of the highest-ranking Latino elected officials in the city and the President of the only borough that is majority Latinos in population, it is surprising that 5 percent of Latinos find they haven't heard enough about him to given an opinion on him. However, among those Latinos who stated they knew enough about him, 80 percent viewed him favorably, compared to 74 percent of Blacks, 65 percent of Whites, and 70 percent overall.

As the only Latina citywide public official, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who represents East Harlem and part of the Bronx, is also not well-known by New Yorkers, according to this Quinnipiac Poll. Close to half, 47 percent, felt they didn't know enough about her to provide an approval rating. Surprisingly, even among Latinos, 45 percent indicated they didn't know enough to assess how she was doing her job. This is surprising given her almost daily exposure in the media as a Council Speaker, but could be the result of the lack of public understanding of the role of the Speaker and the fact that her political base is limited to the East Harlem section of Manhattan.

Among those who felt they knew enough to give an opinion, Mark-Viverito received positive approval ratings from 64 percent of Latinos, 70 percent of Blacks, 42 percent of Whites and 56 percent overall.

The other major Latina city official assessed in this Quinnipiac Poll was Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, who is of Spanish background and oversees one-third of the city budget. Despite her high profile position, more than a third of New Yorkers (36 percent) didn't know enough of her to give an opinion on her job performance. Among those who gave an opinion, only 35 percent of Whites approve, compared to 60 percent of Latinos, 52 percent of Blacks and 46 percent overall.

Mayor de Blasio on Public Schools and Corruption

The Quinnipiac Poll also asked about Mayor de Blasio's job performance in some areas; here we focus on two --- the public schools and political corruption.

On Mayor de Blasio's handling of the public schools, only 35 percent approve of the job he is doing. His low rating in this area is largely due to White dissatisfaction: only 24 percent of Whites approve of his handling of the schools, compared to 47 percent of Blacks and 41 percent of Latinos.

A significant 15 percent of all New Yorkers indicate they don't know enough about this issue to give an opinion. When to only look at those who did provide an opinion, only 29 percent of Whites approve, compared to 55 percent of Blacks, 47 percent of Latinos and 41 percent overall.

These weak approval ratings of Mayor de Blasio's handling of the public schools, combined with the mediocre job performance given Schools Chancellor Fariña in this poll, it is unclear why the continuing Mayoral control of the public schools has so much support among the city's elites. The findings from this poll indicate that the issue of Mayoral control requires greater critical examination than has been the case to date by the de Blasio Administration.

Satisfaction with the City Today

The majority of New Yorkers expressed dissatisfaction with the way things are going in New York City today. Only 36 percent of Whites stated they were very-to-somewhat satisfied, compared to 50 percent of Blacks and 44 percent of Latinos. Latinos and Whites had the highest percentages of these indicating they were "very dissatisfied" at 27 percent each, compared to 20 of lacks.

About the Poll

From May 18 - 23, 2016 Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,038 New York City voters, with a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points. Live interviewers call land lines and cell phones. The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado and the nation as a public service and for research.

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