Here’s something unusual from today’s Siena poll: Alan Hevesi’s approval rating improved.
Hevesi’s favorable/unfavorable rating is now 40-21 percent, from 40-14 percent last month.
This poll came after a period in which the story about Hevesi’s use of a state employee as a chauffeur for his wife got more exposure, as both Eliot Spitzer and John Faso criticized the comptroller during their televised debate.
Either New York voters are surprisingly pro-chauffeur, or, as is more usually the case, they simply haven’t found this story nearly as fascinating or meaningful as the press has.
The rest of the poll is here.
– Azi Paybarah
UPDATE: The mayor just took a pass on the Hevesi chauffeur scandal. Here’s what he told reporters:
“I don’t think it serves any purpose for me to get involved. Having said that, I do think that the most important thing is that the public believes that their government is honest. Now I’ve known Alan Hevesi for a long time and I’ve always thought that he was an honest, very hard-working elected official and I was just disappointed to read in the paper about this indiscretion or however you want to phrase it.”
