President Joe Biden leads former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, in Trump’s home state of New York despite holding some of the lowest approval ratings of his term, according to a poll from Siena College released Tuesday.
The Siena Research Institute found that Biden’s favorability rating dropped in the last month from 50% positive and 45% negative to 45% positive and 52% negative. His job approval rating fell slightly less during that time, from 47% approval and 48% disapproval in September to 46% approval and 51% disapproval in October.
When matched up head to head, Biden leads Trump 46% to 37%, a decline from last month when he led 52% to Trump’s 31%. When independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Cornell West are included, Biden still leads but by a smaller margin of 38% to Trump’s 31%, while Kennedy garnered 13% and West, 5%.
“Is New York still ‘true blue?’ True, 49% of voters are enrolled as Democrats and only 23% as Republicans. True, the last Republican presidential candidate to win here was Ronald Reagan in 1984. But also true is that just last year, a Republican came within seven points of being elected governor. And also true is that right now, Biden has his worst-ever New York favorability and job approval ratings,” Siena College pollster Steven Greenberg said in a statement. “The good news for Biden is the election is more than a year away. The bad news is there’s more bad news.”
The Siena College Poll surveyed 1,225 registered voters in New York State on October 15-19, 2023 with a margin of error of +/- 3.4 percentage points.