More New Yorkers would vote for Obama over GOP candidate

New York, Aug.17 (ANI): New York voters have said that they would still vote for President Barack Obama rather than a Republican candidate, notwithstanding their current dissatisfaction with the job he is doing.

According to a Siena College Research Institute survey of 1,008 registered voters conducted Aug. 9-14, more than half view Obama favorably, though nearly two-thirds think the first-term Democrat is doing only a fair or poor job as president.

Referring to the survey, the New York Post says that even Obama's favorability rating is down to 52 percent, 10 points below where it was in Siena's May poll.

And it adds that the percentage of voters viewing him unfavorably has risen by nine points to 45 percent since then.

The poll further says that his job performance rating is the worst it's ever been in a Siena poll, and even Democrats are evenly divided.

And for the first time since March, fewer than half of the survey respondents said they were prepared to re-elect him.

New York Republicans favor Giuliani out of a field of 12 declared and potential GOP presidential candidates. While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was second, he was seen as the most likely Republican to win the nomination and as Obama's strongest potential opponent in the 2012 election.

Giuliani had the support of nearly one-quarter of Republicans, followed by Romney at 18 percent, former Governor George Pataki at 11 percent, and nine other declared and potential candidates in single digits.

While voters are nearly evenly divided on whether Obama should be re-elected against an unnamed Republican opponent, he leads Giuliani by six points and is comfortably ahead of other potential Republican candidates by 18 (Romney) to 39 points (2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin), the poll found.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. (ANI)