Governor Cuomo favorability rating is the highest in 7 years: poll

The Siena College poll shows New Yorkers overwhelmingly approve of Governor Cuomo’s methods of handling the coronavirus. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins the On The Move panel to share the details.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: As we have seen the coronavirus cases increase in the United States, we have seen, of course, a lot of political response. Some new polls show that President Trump's favorability rating has gone up, even as perhaps his chances of re-election have not followed.

Rick Newman has more on that for us. And is that unusual, Rick, to see a favorability rating improve even as it looks like, in one particular poll, a match-up between President Trump and Joe Biden shows Biden edging him out?

RICK NEWMAN: I think we have no idea what's usual here, Julie. Obviously unprecedented circumstances. So we know that President Trump's approval rating has ticked up a little bit amid the coronavirus pandemic and the Trump administration's response to it. His approval rating has not gone up by nearly as much as it has for some European leaders like Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron. So he's not getting as big a bump as he probably could have. And, of course, pollsters, even though it seems kind of irrelevant right now, they still keep trying to figure out how does Joe Biden-- who is still not, you know, formally the Democratic nominee, but he looks like he will be-- how will he match up against Trump?

And it does look like Biden still has a lead even as Trump does pretty well in-- you know, with an approval rating going up. So a few polls recently show Biden with something like a one- to five-point margin over Trump. Those are nationwide polls. There also is some internal Democratic polling. Stan Greenberg is a Democratic consultant, has done some polling. He shows Biden with around a five-point lead over Trump in swing states. That's where the election's going to be determined.

So I guess it looks pretty good for Joe Biden at the moment, but so much is going to change by the time voters actually decide whom to vote for in November. I don't think these polls are all that meaningful right now.

DAN HOWLEY: Hey, Rick, what do you make of the fact that his approval rating is doing so well as, you know, scientists-- the greater community, I guess, comes out and says that this response was botched-- the idea that they closed off that pandemic response team from the National Security Council. They had this, what was it? six weeks or so where they could have responded but they didn't. How do you square that?

RICK NEWMAN: A couple of things, I guess. I mean, we are in a crisis, and Trump is doing primetime briefings. A lot of people are actually tuning in to watch those briefings, which are now at 5:00-- around 5:00 PM on a daily basis. So they see Trump on TV, and they may not know all the details of, you know, how we got where we are right now, and they just think Trump looks fairly presidential, like he's handling a crisis.

I also think even though most Americans know about this, you know, it's not hitting a lot of Americans right now. And I think Trump is in for a real slog because of two things. First of all, the virus itself is going to hit a lot more communities, and instead of being something that you think is only in big cities like New York and Chicago, it's going to be in a lot of other places, and that's going to scare people. And this recession is going to get terrible. I mean, we're only in the very beginning of a recession that is going to be really grinding on people, and I think Trump is in trouble.

I think as this goes on and people wonder, when are we going to get out of this? I mean, the timing is going-- could not be worse for Trump because this is all going to happen right in the homestretch of an election.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Rick, I was curious what happens if what you've just said comes true with the nominating convention, particularly the Democrats. How do they nominate somebody if this has to be postponed?

RICK NEWMAN: And it might be postponed. So I guess they're going to have to-- you know, it's the Democratic National Committee that sets the rules, and the DNC is going-- you know, it might have to change its rules. So they-- you know, it's like the same thing we're seeing in Congress. They don't have procedures for remote voting, but they might have to develop procedures to do that. So I guess it would be the same for the DNC. They might have to find a way to have remote voting among their delegates.

One good thing for that-- I mean, it's really-- probably really fortunate for the Democratic Party that this is not a neck-and-neck race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. Joe Biden really was running away with it. So imagine if it was really tight and in the middle of this the DNC changed the rules. I mean, that would just be a recipe for Bernie Sanders to go ballistic and all his supporters to cry foul.

But because Joe Biden, you know, really looked like he was going to run away with it, that probably makes it easier for the DNC to say, look, we all know Biden is the man. We just need to figure out how to make it official.

JULIE HYMAN: Rick, I just want to ask you about a poll from Siena College that showed a very high favorability rating for Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and his handling of the coronavirus crisis. I mean, I guess it shows also a little bit of still dissatisfaction with Joe Biden as the presumptive nominee because people have been talking about what if Cuomo threw his hat into the race? which seems a little bit, I don't know, pie in the sky or something at this point.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah. He probably-- I don't expect it, but that poll showed his approval rating at 87%. I mean, it almost doesn't go higher than that in politics, and he was only around 50%, five-zero percent before the crisis a month ago.

So, you know, Andrew Cuomo has been doing what a lot of people want a leader to do. First of all, he's very empathetic. He doesn't just come out and recite facts and say what's going to happen. I mean, he's very empathetic. He talks about real people. He actually talked about his mother. I think her name is Matilda, and he mentioned her by name. He said should my mother Matilda be one of the people who dies because we feel that that's tolerably? He said no, not Matilda. And, I mean, people just gravitate to that.

You know, he's not universally beloved here in New York. I mean, he has his issues. But yes, he's clearly being mentioned as now a-- you know, in a good position for national candidacy. So his term as governor expires in 2020, and that would be his third term. He can actually run for a fourth term because you're allowed to do that here in New York, and I think the sort of speculation at this point is if he runs for re-election, assuming there's no catastrophe in his political future, he will win again, and then he might be very well positioned to run for president in 2024, especially if Joe Biden is the president. Good chance he could be a one-term president. If Donald Trump is the president, he'd be in his second and final term. So that's the outlook for Andrew Cuomo.

And by the way, he's 62 years old, so he's got plenty of time left.

JULIE HYMAN: He's a spring chicken relative to--

RICK NEWMAN: Yes, he is.

JULIE HYMAN: --the other candidates right now. Thank you, Rick. Appreciate it.