The Siena College Research Institute is ready to embark on its next New York political poll. WBFO's senior reporter Eileen Buckley reports it will be asking about attitudes toward President-elect Donald Trump to measure the post-election mood.
“We certainly will be polling their attitudes towards not only likability, but also the choices that he’s making for his cabinet and the policies he will initially seek to move through congress,” said Don Levy, Director of Siena Research.
Levy tells WBFO News his organization started collecting data immediately after Thanksgiving for a brand new poll. They want to find out how New Yorkers felt about the election and if their attitude toward Trump has changed.
“We know that both candidates received negative favorability ratings — Donald Trump more so here in New York than Hillary Clinton, but he is the President-elect. New Yorkers, I think, as is the rest of the country, are accepting it, coming to grips with it, understanding it,” Levy remarked.
Levy predicts the new poll could find a majority of New Yorkers saying they 'wish’ Trump the ‘best of luck’ and want him to succeed in the presidency. However, Clinton carried New York and Levy said he realizes there could be an interesting response to the next poll.
“Hillary Clinton carried the State of New York by 21 points. That’s not a small amount. A very large majority of New Yorkers voted for Hillary Clinton and not for Donald Trump. That’s a lot people who have to be won over and certainly many of those people are feeling disappointed, shocked and disappointed,” Levy noted.
There has been some deep criticism against pollsters for national and state-wide pre-election polls that had given Clinton the lead to defeat Trump, however, Levy defends Siena's work.
“We did quite well and I think anybody who pays attention knows we did quite well. I don’t subscribe to the theory that people lied to or were afraid to talk to pollsters because I didn’t have that experience. They talked to us,” said Levy.
Levy noted it is important to ask voters about issues which makes it a better predictor.
