- Associated Press - Thursday, March 6, 2014

NEW YORK (AP) - Only thirty-nine percent of registered New York City voters believe Mayor Bill de Blasio’s has done a “good” or “excellent” job during his first two months in City Hall, according to a poll released Thursday.

More than half of the voters polled rated his performance “fair” or “poor,” according to the Marist College/The Wall Street Journal/WNBC poll. Just ten percent of voters gave de Blasio the highest “excellent” mark while 29 percent categorized his performance as good.

De Blasio, the city’s first Democratic mayor in 20 years, took office January 1 after capturing 73 percent of the vote in a landslide victory in November.

The poll, which is the first of de Blasio’s mayoralty, comes in the wake of a series of missteps.

He drew criticism for calling the NYPD after the arrest of political ally; a video showed his SUV caravan breaking several traffic laws just two days after he unveiled his traffic safety plan; and his signature proposal, a tax hike on the wealthy to fund universal pre-kindergarten, appears stalled in Albany.

Voters also gave him a middling grade on his handling of the harsh winter weather: 56 percent believe he has successfully handled the series of snowstorms that have blanketed the region.

Thirty-seven percent of voters rated his overall job performance as fair while an additional 20 percent say he is doing poorly, according to the poll.

De Blaiso himself received far higher marks than his performance. Fifty-nine percent have favorable view of him while 33 percent have an unfavorable view. Moreover, 65 percent of voters believe de Blasio cares about people like them, 63 percent say he is fulfilling his campaign promises and 58 percent believe he is a good leader.

“Mayor de Blasio has focused the first 60 days of his administration on building, running and changing the direction of the government,” said his spokeswoman Marti Adams, “and with a 59 percent favorability rating, the majority of New Yorkers approve of the direction he’s taking the city.”

The mayor’s wife, Chirlane McCray, has an outsized role in the administration and was viewed favorably by 52 percent of those surveyed in the new poll. Only 19 percent of voters have an unfavorable view of her while 29 percent did not have an opinion.

The poll surveyed 586 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

De Blasio’s predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, scored higher marks in the first Marist poll taken after he assumed office in January 2002. Fifty percent of voters rated his performance as “excellent” or “good” while 29 percent said it was “fair” and six percent said it was “poor.”

For that poll, 1,280 voters were surveyed. The poll had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

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