Most New York Voters Are Optimistic About the Mayor, a Poll Finds

Two weeks into a new administration at City Hall, New York City voters are highly optimistic about Mayor Bill de Blasio and overwhelmingly endorse his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for prekindergarten, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.

But the poll found New Yorkers decidedly less enthusiastic about the mayor’s intention to give his wife, Chirlane McCray, a major role in his administration. And they were wildly opposed to Mr. de Blasio’s campaign pledge to rid Central Park of horse-drawn carriages: About 61 percent of voters said the mayor should let the carriage horses be.

Still, two-thirds of voters — and even larger majorities of blacks and Hispanics — said they were hopeful about the next four years with Mr. de Blasio in City Hall. His highest approval rating came from black voters; 71 percent approved of the way Mr. de Blasio was handling his job. Among all voters, Mr. de Blasio’s job approval rating was a healthy 53 percent.

Just 27 percent of voters said a “mayor’s spouse” should have a major role in shaping policy, but about 30 percent disagreed.

The poll shows that nearly three out of four New York voters support Mr. de Blasio’s pledge to increase the income tax on households earning more than $500,000 a year to pay for prekindergarten.

Support dropped only slightly, to 69 percent, when poll participants were asked if they would support or oppose a general tax increase. It fell somewhat more, to 55 percent, when participants were asked if they would support such a tax increase to be used for things other than prekindergarten.

The poll, conducted from Jan. 9 to Wednesday, surveyed 1,288 New York City registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

It showed that most voters supported the mayor’s choice of William J. Bratton as police commissioner and approved of the way the police were doing their job. Nearly half of the respondents said they believed Mr. de Blasio would be able to curb the use of stop-and-frisk tactics without jeopardizing public safety; 40 percent said they believed crime would go up with a reduction in the use of stop-and-frisk policing.

Though respondents did not list income inequality as a priority, an overwhelming majority saw it as a serious or very serious problem when asked about the subject directly, and two-thirds said the city government should pursue policies to bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

“When we ask New Yorkers what’s their top priority, they say education, jobs, crime, housing. Almost no one says, ‘income inequality,’   ” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement. “But when we ask them specifically about income inequality, they want to rewrite ‘The Tale of Two Cities.’ ”