New York mayor approval ratings differ steeply by race, poll shows

[January 17, 2015]  NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers are sharply divided by race in their approval ratings of Mayor Bill de Blasio, with blacks overwhelmingly supportive of the liberal mayor's work and whites barely showing support, according to poll results released on Friday.

De Blasio, who is white and married to a black woman, is in the middle of a weeks-long clash with police that began when he publicly supported protests over white police violence against black men.

“The mayor can’t seem to shake that racial ‘tale of two cities’ that characterizes his administration," Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Maurice Carroll said in a statement.

While 78 percent of black polled voters approved of the job de Blasio is doing, white respondents disapproved almost two-to-one, according to the Quinnipiac University Poll. Slightly more than half of Hispanics approved of de Blasio.

Overall, 48 percent of voters approved of the way de Blasio is handling relations between blacks and whites, compared to 42 percent who disapproved.

Black, white and Hispanic New Yorkers responded similarly to the question of whether race relations in New York City were generally good or bad, saying they were just slightly better than worse.

Overall, 49 percent of New York City voters supported the mayor.

The poll was based on interviews with 1,182 New York City registered voters over the last week and had a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points, Quinnipiac said.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, Bernard Orr)

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