Everyone wants to get New York City’s kids into pre-K programs, but don’t agree on how. Credit: Getty Images
New York state voters prefer Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan for universal pre-K with no new taxes over Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to fund the program with a city income tax hike on high-income families, a new poll shows.
Forty-seven percent of voters statewide support Cuomo’s no-tax plan, while 37 percent said they prefer de Blasio’s plan, according to the Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.
Among city voters, 49 percent said they agree with Cuomo’s plan compared to 40 percent of voters who prefer de Blasio’s plan.
Overall, 76 percent of voters support paying for universal pre-K with state funding, while 20 percent oppose it.
The majority of city and state voters believe universal pre-K would be “very effective” or “somewhat effective” in improving education for all children in New York state. Seventy-four percent said they believe universal pre-K would be very or somewhat effective in putting poor children “on a path out of poverty.”
“Just about everyone in this most liberal of states likes universal prekindergarten and they think — overwhelmingly — that kids will learn and that it will help them out of poverty,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
“But voters prefer Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s no-new-taxes approach to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tax-the-rich plan to pay for those new classes.”
Still, 44 percent of city voters said their political views line up with de Blasio compared to 38 percent who said the governor most closely represents their views.
Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,488 New York State voters over the phone between Feb. 6 and Feb. 10. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
