ALBANY - In January, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had the highest favorability rating of his second term.
Now, a month after his former top aide was convicted of bribery and facing a spirited primary challenge, Cuomo's popularity has plummeted, a Siena College poll Tuesday found.
Cuomo's favorability rating fell to 49 percent positive and 44 percent negative this month, matching his lowest rating as governor, the poll from the Albany-area college said.
Cuomo last had such low numbers in July 2015, Siena said. He first took office in 2011.
"Since January, when he enjoyed the best favorability rating of his second term, Cuomo’s favorability rating has dropped net 27 points,” Steven Greenberg, a spokesman for the Siena poll, said in a statement.
The numbers were much worse upstate: Cuomo's favorability was 60 percent unfavorable and 37 favorable. He was most popular in New York City, while voters were split in the city's suburbs.
The good news for Cuomo: He held a 31 percentage point lead over Democratic rival Cynthia Nixon and even larger leads against Republican challengers.
But even the lead against Nixon wasn't as wide as it was last month, when Siena found him ahead 66 percent to 19 percent.
This month's poll showed a 58 percent to 27 percent edge over the actress who Saturday won the support of the influential Working Families Party.
Among Democrats, though, Cuomo had a 62 percent to 32 percent favorability rating, compared to 33 percent to 23 percent for Nixon — who remained unknown to a large percentage of New Yorkers, the poll said.
“The race has just started, and there’s still five months to go. In a variation of Bette Davis’ famous line: fasten your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride," Greenberg said.
Against either Republican challenger — Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro or Syracuse Sen. John DeFrancisco — Cuomo held leads of more than 20 percentage points.
Greenberg pointed out Cuomo four years ago won the Democratic primary against Zephyr Teachout with 63 percent of the vote when only 11 percent of Democrats voted.
And the poll showed Cuomo with a three-to-one lead in New York City, where more than half of Democratic primary votes traditionally come from.
"Early on, Cuomo seems to be in a strong position to again be the Democratic Party’s standard bearer," Greenberg said.
"However, Nixon has narrowed the deficit more than a little in the last month and the campaigns are just gearing up.”
The Siena College poll was conducted April 8-12 to 692 New York registered voters. It had a margin of error of 4.3 percentage point.