Today’s Siena poll finds New Yorkers believe the kinder, gentler Andrew Cuomo storyline and want him to hurry up and declare his gubernatorial candidacy so he can get busy explaining how he’ll save the state.

Cuomo, who has never managed to completely shake his Type-A reputation among political insiders, is viewed by nearly two-thirds of voters as just the right degree of aggressive.

By a margin of 63-23, poll respondents said the AG is someone who’ll help clean up Albany rather than too much a part of its dysfunctional culture to be truly effective as a change agent.

Cuomo’s Rose Garden strategy hasn’t hurt his popularity – 66 percent view him favorably, up from 63 percent last month. But for the first time, more voters (49 percent) say the time has come from the AG to make his political intentions clear rather than waiting still longer to announce his candidacy (36 percent).

“For months, voters have said that Cuomo has time to declare what he’s running for – seemingly agreeing with the Attorney General that it was a time for governing rather than politics,” said Siena poll spokesman Steve Greenberg.

“As we are now less than seven months from Election Day, the tide has swung and voters want Cuomo to declare his intentions, and they’d prefer, particularly Democrats, that he run for governor.”

Cuomo cleans the clock of any of his three would-be GOP challengers, leading Rick Lazio 61-24 percent, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy 58-23 percent and Carl Paladino 64-19 percent.

The battle for the GOP nomination remains a toss-up, although Lazio is leading the pack among Republican voters with 29 percent, followed by Levy at 15 and Paladino at 13. The big winner? Undecided with 43 percent.

Forty-six percent of voters said they don’t know enough about Lazio to have an opinion, 63 percent said the same for Levy and 76 percent for Paladino.

“All three Republicans have a long way to go in becoming known to New York voters, particularly Republican primary voters,” said Greenberg.

“Lazio has the early lead but this is a very fluid race and opinion could shift dramatically – or not – once voters learn more about the candidates…While none of the three Republican candidates is currently getting more than 12 percent support among Democrats, Cuomo has the support of at least 28 percent of Republicans, and a better than two-to-one lead among independent voters.”

SNY0410 Crosstabs

Share|