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Hochul has strong bipartisan voter support for her policies, but her image continues to languish

This stock photo shows children using their smartphones.
LP/WESTOCK
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Adobe Stock
This stock photo shows children using their smartphones.

Several of Gov. Kathy Hochul's key policy proposals for 2025 have bipartisan support among New York voters, according to a new poll from Siena College.

A majority of the Democrats (86%), Republicans (62%) and independent voters (75%) who were surveyed said they backed Hochul's plans to provide free breakfast and lunch to every public school student in the state.

Voters across party lines also like the governor's planned restrictions on smartphones during the school day and her proposed increase in the child tax credit.

"She has captured a number of issues and tried to make them her own that are very popular with voters," said Siena Research Institute spokesperson Steve Greenberg. "The question is, can she translate that into voting voters understanding that she's fighting for the issues that they care about."

Hochul's favorability and job approval ratings continued to languish in this latest poll, at 39% and 44%, respectively. In three and a half years as governor, her favorability rating has never surpassed 48% in a state where Democrats have a two-to-one voter enrollment advantage over Republicans.

Forty-two percent of voters surveyed said they believed New Yorkers' lives would improve if Hochul's 2025 agenda was enacted.

The Siena poll also showed overall voter support of 54% for a $1 billion income tax cut for most taxpayers. And 51% of survey respondents also said they were on board with Hochul's plan to allow individuals to be involuntarily committed to a mental health facility if they are deemed to be at risk of harm due to their inability to access food, shelter, or medical care.

There was also wide, bipartisan support among New York voters for the Trump Administration's deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime.

But the administration's stiff tariffs on goods imported from Cananda and Mexico were much less popular with Democratic voters (16%) compared to Republicans (61%).

Beth Adams joined WXXI as host of Morning Edition in 2012 after a more than two-decade radio career. She was the longtime host of the WHAM Morning News in Rochester. Her career also took her from radio stations in Elmira, New York, to Miami, Florida.