Ocasio-Cortez blames her poor approval rating numbers among New York state voters on Fox News
- Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is underwater with New York State voters, a poll released Monday found.
- While 31% of registered New York voters had a favorable opinion of the 29-year-old democratic socialist, 44% of voters had an unfavorable view of her.
- Ocasio-Cortez's role in mobilizing opposition to Amazon's since-scuttled plan to open a headquarters in Queens was a likely factor.
- 38% of New York voters consider Ocasio-Cortez a "villain" (compared to 12% who consider her a hero) for her role in the Amazon deal's collapse. 67% of New York state voters said the cancellation of the deal is bad for the state.
- But the Bronx native is blaming her deep unpopularity among Republicans in her home state on Fox News' relentless coverage of her rapid political rise.
- The freshman congresswoman noted that more non-white voters, women, and people between the ages of 18-34 had a positive opinion of her than a negative one.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is underwater with New York State voters, according to a new Siena College poll of New York registered voters released Monday.
While 31% of registered New York State voters had a favorable opinion of the 29-year-old democratic socialist, 44% of voters had an unfavorable view of her, according to the Siena College Research Institute poll. About a quarter - 26% - of respondents had no opinion of the freshman lawmaker.
Among registered Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez had a 47% favorability rating, while just 6% of Republicans have a positive opinion of her. And just 10% of self-described conservatives - and 25% of moderates - viewed her positively.
That same Siena poll showed 38% of New York voters consider Ocasio-Cortez a "villain" (compared to 12% who consider her a hero) for her role in mobilizing opposition to Amazon's plan open a second headquarters in Long Island City, Queens - a neighborhood which abuts her district. Amazon cited local political opposition as its primary reason for scuttling the proposed deal.
Read more: New Yorkers are blaming 'villain' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after Amazon abandoned its HQ2 plans
The Amazon deal was popular with New Yorkers, who according to the Siena poll would support - by a 61-30 percent margin - $3 billion in city and state incentives to entice Amazon back to the state. The poll also found New Yorkers considered the deal's cancellation bad for New York by a margin of 67-21 percent.
In response to a similar Gallup poll released last week, which found the lawmaker underwater with white voters and men, the congresswoman argued that Fox News is to blame for her deep unpopularity among conservatives.
"The reason people know more is bc Fox News has turned into 'AOC TMZ' (no offense to TMZ), so awareness is growing w/ GOPers," she tweeted on Saturday. "We can't be scared by that."
Ocasio-Cortez has received outsized media attention from both news outlets across the political spectrum ever since she won her June 2018 primary. But she believes conservative pundits are peppering her with "bigoted" attacks in order to turn more moderate Democrats against her. She claimed that being a young woman of color makes her an easy target for cheap attacks on her politics and character.
Read more: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez replaces Nancy Pelosi as Republicans' new boogeyman for 2020
The freshman congresswoman noted that more non-white voters, women, and people between the ages of 18-34 had a positive opinion of her than a negative one. The Siena poll similarly found her popularity was much higher among black, Latino, and women voters than among white and male voters, but her unfavorability was higher than her favorability among 18-34-year-olds.
The Siena College poll surveyed 700 registered voters between March 10-14 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.