ALBANY - Gov. Andrew Cuomo is beginning an election year in a strong position with voters as Republicans struggle to find a candidate to challenge him, according to a new poll.
Sixty-two percent of registered New York voters have a favorable view of the Democratic governor, the Siena College poll released Tuesday showed.
Just 30 percent of voters said they had an unfavorable view.
Cuomo's favorability is his highest tracked by Siena since June 2014, the last year he was running for re-election.
It's up five percentage points from October, when he had a 57 percent favorable rating.
The rise comes as he's become increasingly critical of President Donald Trump's administration, waging a battle over federal tax reform and its impact on New York.
But it also comes ahead of some potential stumbling blocks. Cuomo's state budget proposal
Tuesday has to close a $4 billion gap, and his former top aide and confidante, Joseph Percoco, is set to go on trial on bribery-related charges next week.
Siena pollster Steve Greenberg cautioned that Election Day is "many political lifetimes" away.
"Budgets, trials, legislation, ribbon cuttings, natural or other disasters (hopefully not), federal issues, and unforeseen events likely to impact the political landscape," Greenberg said in a statement.
That said, Andrew Cuomo enters a re-election year with his best favorability rating since the last re-election campaign."
Cuomo's favorability rating was above water across the state, with 76 percent of New York City voters, 57 percent of suburban voters and 51 percent of upstate voters having a positive view of him.
Among Democrats, Cuomo's had a favorable rating from 76 percent of voters, while 56 percent of Republican voters had an unfavorable view. Eight out of 10 self-described liberals said they had a favorable view of Cuomo.
Along with his personal favorability rating, Cuomo's job-performance rating was up as well, with 50 percent saying the governor is doing an "excellent" or "good" job.
Forty-eight percent said Cuomo is doing a "fair" or "poor" job, according to the Siena poll.
More than half of voters polled said they are prepared to re-elect him, with 55 percent backing him and 36 percent backing someone else. Ten percent were unsure.
Republicans have been trying to recruit candidates to challenge Cuomo at the ballot box in November.
Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, Ontario County, and former Erie County Executive Joel Giambra are the only GOP gubernatorial hopefuls that have officially entered the race, while Republican Sen. John DeFrancisco is also considering a run.
Two candidates Republican officials were hoping would enter the race have already bowed out.
Harry Wilson, a Westchester resident who is a business-turnaround expert, said earlier this month he wouldn't run, citing family concerns.
Dutchess County Executive Marcus Molinaro also bowed out earlier this month.
Republican Chairman Ed Cox quibbled with Siena's polling methodology, questioning whether they oversampled New York City's vote, which leans heavily Democratic.
Along with the positive poll numbers, Cuomo is also a formidable campaign fundraiser, which will allow him to blanket the airwaves with campaign advertisements ahead of Election Day.
Cuomo is due to report how much he has raised since July with the Board of Elections on Tuesday.
In mid-July, Cuomo had more than $25 million in his campaign account. He's expected to report having about $31 million on hand Tuesday, according to Spectrum News' Capital Tonight.
Siena polled 824 registered New York voters between Jan. 7 and 11, according to the poll, which has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Jon Campbell is a correspondent for the USA TODAY Network's Albany Bureau.
