Cuomo ought to resign over sexual harassment claims, New Yorkers say in ballot

People attend a protest to demand New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation after a third woman accused him of sexual harassment in New York City on March 2, 2021.

Kena Betancur | AFP | Getty Images

A whopping 70% of New York voters say Gov. Andrew Cuomo should resign, according to a poll released Friday.

A solid majority of state voters, 55%, told the Quinnipiac University poll that Cuomo should be criminally charged in connection with what investigators for the New York Attorney General’s office have described as sexual harassment of at least 11 women.

The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday, on the heels of the scathing report about the third-term Democratic governor’s conduct, which was released Tuesday by AG Letitia James.

It was released hours after the Albany County, N.Y., Sheriff’s Office said that it had received a criminal complaint from a former executive assistant to Cuomo.

That assistant had told investigators for the James report that Cuomo groped her breast and buttock in different incidents, and made repeated suggestive comments to her.

James has said Cuomo broke federal and state laws with his conduct.

The survey found that if Cuomo does not resign, 63% of voters believe he should be impeached and removed from office. A slightly higher percentage of respondents said they believed the allegations that Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women.

While Republicans were most likely to say Cuomo should resign, with 88% of GOP voters supporting that idea, 57% of the governor’s fellow Democrats also believed he should quit now. Leading Democratic elected officials in New York, as well as President Joe Biden, likewise have called on Cuomo to resign.

Cuomo has adamantly denied any wrongdoing, and has refused calls to quit.

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The poll also found that Cuomo, 63, now has his “all-time lowest job approval since taking office in 2011,” with just 28% of voters approving of his performance, and 63% disapproving.

That’s sharply down from the prior all-time low, which had a 39%-48% approval/disapproval split.

The poll, which sampled 615 self-identified registered voters who were called on landlines and cellphones, has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

“New Yorkers of all stripes are sending a clear message to Governor Cuomo that it is time to step down from office,” said Mary Snow, the Quinnipiac University polling analyst.

A Marist Poll conducted on Tuesday night, hours after James released the report on Cuomo, found that 59% of registered voters thought he should resign. An identical percentage of respondents in that poll said the state Assembly should impeach him if he does not quit.

Cuomo faces the likelihood of being impeached by the Assembly over the allegations.