Brian: It's Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On the day of January 6th committee, we'll focus on Donald Trump's pressure on Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election. How that may have contributed to the violence at the capital and how Pence resisted? We will have live coverage at one o'clock this afternoon. I'll be on for a preview with Alison Stewart around 12:45 PM. It's the day after Mayor Eric Adams announced his endorsement in the Democratic primary for governor. He's going with Kathy Hochul over fellow Brooklynite Jumaane Williams, who's more to the left than Adams on criminal justice policy and some other things.

Even over Tom Suozzi, who remember Adams lavished high praise on earlier this year and offered a deputy mayor job too. The Adams endorsement came a day after the New York Times endorsed Hochul, establishment, heavy hitters seemed to be lining up for Kathy Hochul more and more and she has a big lead in fundraising too. A Siena College poll, we'll talk about in a minute, finds Hochul has an overall negative job approval rating among people in New York City, including among Democrats. We've invited all three of those Democratic primary candidates on for closing arguments in the coming week.

We have Jumaane Williams lined up for tomorrow at ten o'clock to kick that off. Mayor Adams will hit six months in office at the end of this month. Last week, at NY1, Siena College poll found just 29% of New York City residents polled rated Adams' job performance so far as good or excellent, just 29%. His approval percentages were even lower on his core issues of fight and crime and homelessness. A majority of New Yorkers liked his style, which even though that's not substance, that style I think could matter to his ultimate success.

We'll talk to the Siena College pollster who led the study and the NY1 journalist who reported it, but one more stat from it that I found interesting before we bring them on and dig in, a whopping 76% of New Yorkers poll said they are very or somewhat concerned that they would be a victim of violent crime. The same whopping numbers 76% said they are satisfied with the quality of life in their neighborhood. How do those two responses make sense together?

With us now Spectrum News NY1 political reporter, Emily Ngo, and Don Levy, Director of the Siena College Research Institute, which conducted the poll. They also have a new one out on guns today, which is interesting and related and we'll touch on that, too. Emily, welcome back. Professor Levy, welcome to WNYC.

Don: Thank you for having me.

Emily: Good morning.

Brian: Emily, it was Siena College that conducted the poll, but NY1 as a news organization that commissioned it. What were you hoping to learn as we approached the six-month mark of the Adams mayoralty?

Emily: Well, the city is emerging from the pandemic at different rates, different experiences for everyone. Some people feel like they haven't felt a recovery at all and we just wanted to take the tone of the city, see how people are feeling. The mayor talks often about professional naysayers and people on Twitter having being too over-representative in the public discourse. This poll conducted by Siena College in conjunction with Spectrum News NY1 sought to take the voices and the temperature of every day of New Yorkers. We were very surprised. I can speak for myself personally at how pessimistic New Yorkers were overall on several issues, particularly on public safety.

Brian: What did you mean by the term professional naysayers in that framing?

Emily: We ask the mayor pretty consistently. I'm speaking about city hall reporters, who exactly he mean when he says he doesn't want to listen to critics and he wants to go ahead and conduct or do his job and gets stuff done. He talks about not listening to the critics. He'll never name a particular politician or news outlet who's criticizing him. He does talk about naysayers framing the work that he's done in his couple of months in office.

I thought that the whole results put a little bit of perspective into how real people feel versus how he may think that columnists or influential people on Twitter or less-leaning politicians might feel about him.

Brian: The general public surprisingly down on Adams to you as you looked at these results. Listeners, one way I thought we might contribute some thoroughly unscientific narrative to our conversation about these scientific Eric Adams poll results is to open up the phones for people who I might call the yaysayers. That is people who are always for Eric Adams as your first choice. Remember he had ranked-choice voting in the mayor primary last year. If you chose Eric Adams first, all along last year, we're inviting you to call right now and say do you approve of the job he's doing so far?

212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Do you approve of Adam's approach to violent crime, to policing, to housing, to COVID, or whatever else you want to cite, especially in light of these pole findings, which seem to indicate that some decent number of people who voted for him must be alienated at this point? If you ranked Eric Adams your first choice in last year's mayor primary, how's he doing according to you? 212-433-WNYC because if only 29% overall, the approve of his job performance so far, is he losing even his original core supporters?

What about you, if you ranked Adams number one in last year's primary? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Professor Levy, let's start in on the numbers with that top line on Mayor Adams' job approval. It's that number 29% that made the headlines. 29% of who said what?

Don: We spoke to 1,000 New York City residents in this poll. The majority of the phone calls were completed via cell phone, 65% and it's a representative sample across every borough, every demographic in the city. What we found to try to break down the numbers a little bit more, we said, how would you rate the job that Eric Adams is doing as mayor? Would you say excellent, good, fair, or poor? Only 7% said that he was doing an excellent job, 22% good. That's how we combine those two numbers and determine that to be a positive ranking.

About 1/3 said he's doing a fair job and 29% said he's doing a poor job. I think your point is well taken. There are certainly people who voted for Mayor Adams, who now at best perhaps are saying that he's doing a fair job. In some of the specific areas, most notably fighting crime, we find that a full 45%, nearly half of New York City residents say that they believe the mayor is doing a poor job of fighting crime and that's a theme that goes across many of the questions in the survey.

Brian: Could that be a left judgment as well as a right judgment that is--? Could some of the people who think he's doing a fair or poor job on crime, think he's flooding the streets and stuff with too many police officers? He's going too far back to Bloomberg or Giuliani, kinds of policing?

Don: Certainly, in terms of fighting crime, we see pretty similar ratings of poor, whether you describe yourself as a liberal or moderate or a conservative. In terms of the issue of, let's speak directly about the police force, we ask how good of a job is the mayor doing transforming the NYPD into a force that serves and protects all New Yorkers? There we see 64% rate his job as either fair or poor. Again, if you go over to political ideology, conservatives and liberals are relatively similar.

75% of liberals rank his job as fair or poor and 65% of self-described conservatives, albeit a relatively smaller group in New York City rate his job as no better than fair or poor.

Brian: On professionalizing the police department?

Don: Yes.

Brian: Yet Emily, the poll found 85% of New Yorkers' poll supported Adams' policy of more police in the subways. 85% of people can't agree on whether the sky is blue, but 85% were for more cops in the subways. How does that fit in with this?

Emily: It's an interesting question. The mayor himself brought this up when he was asked about the poll results last week. This concept of reality versus perception. You're right that an overwhelming number of New Yorkers' polls did support more police on the subways, as well as installing metal detectors at subway entrances. We can leave the question of how viable that is up for another discussion as well as dismantling homeless encampment. New Yorkers, according to this poll are on board with his agenda when it comes to public safety.

Squaring that circle, I think is mostly a matter of people feeling less safe versus actually being less safe the way the mayor put it in his response as to why, say according to 70% of New Yorkers poll feel less safe than before the pandemic, but 76% are satisfied with the quality of life in their neighborhoods.

Even if is a little bit about news coverage which, of course, is driven by what mayor focuses on and what he chooses to make the focus of his press conference is if you see a headline about violence on the subway, even if you yourself have never experienced violence on the subway, you're going to feel less safe even if in reality you aren't less safe.

Brian: Yes, and that's that contradiction that I cited in the intro. A whopping 76% of people said they fear being a victim of violent crime in the city, but the same whopping 76% said they feel the quality of life is good in their own neighborhood including two-thirds say they're satisfied with police protection, which I assume is a reflection of their feeling safe in their neighborhoods. You were getting at, Emily, how those numbers go together.

Emily: Right, and I interviewed Don, of course, for the story and he put it well in that people feel safe in their cocoon. They're familiar with their surroundings even if they move about their neighborhoods and don't know everyone they come in contact with. They feel satisfied. People do love New York City as much as some politicians or thought leaders want to focus on people fleeing the city for states like Florida or Texas. I think there are a healthy number of New Yorkers are still sharing for their hometown, sharing for its recovery, and the contrast can only be a matter-- [crosstalk]

Brian: And feel comfortable here.

Emily: And feel comfortable here. There's a work-from-home dynamic that plays into it too. People have gotten to know their neighborhoods better over the course of the past two years, having worked from home and commuted less, and some of those questions are in this poll too.

Brian: Don, for you as a pollster, isn't this like some other common trends in public perception that seem contradictory, like how do you feel about Congress? "Oh, Congress is horrible." How do you feel about your member of Congress? "Oh, I like my member of Congress." If almost everyone feels good about their Congress person, how is it that most people feel bad about Congress? Is it that kind of thing on safety in New York?

Don: It is a little bit of that dynamic. I think that to expound on the point that Emily was making this idea of feeling in a cocoon, I think to a certain extent, that's it. People feel safe in their neighborhood, but I like to call attention to two questions we ask. One being, even in spite of the fact that you're satisfied with the neighborhood and you're satisfied with police protection, how concerned are you that there could be a shooting in which a gunman targets people based on their race, religion, or ethnicity that could happen in your neighborhood?

There we found, again, 69% who indicated they were concerned about that. There's something about the unpredictable, random quality that people feel as though violence is taking place that even in their neighborhood where they feel safe, where it's all familiar, they say it could happen here too. Secondly, we asked the question in order to keep safe, have you changed any part of your daily routine? Any of just the mundane things you do, where you walk, what time you go to get a coffee, who you walk with? Over half of New Yorkers, 51% said, "Yes, indeed. I have changed some of my daily routine."

Maybe just where you stand on the subway platform in order to be safe. In fact, that number jumps to 59% amongst women in New York. It's a little bit of no matter how safe I feel in my neighborhood, I'm still looking over my shoulder a little bit and that doesn't feel good.

Brian: Well, Don, how much did these general approval ratings and approval on crime-fighting and homelessness break out differently by race? For example, Mayor de Blasio never had a majority white approval in his eight years in office, not for a minute, but he had majority-Black approval pretty much the whole time. Are you seeing anything like that with Eric Adams?

Don: We saw some of that, but for example, on fighting crime, amongst the white New Yorkers, only 18% gave him an excellence or good, amongst Black New Yorkers that goes to 35%. It's dramatically higher, but it's still only 35%. If you look at another question like addressing homelessness, for example, there are 15% of white New Yorkers say he's doing an excellent good job, 28% of Black New Yorkers. Almost twice as much support in so far as those folks are saying that he's doing an excellent or good job, but it's still a low level of support even amongst the constituency that tends to support him.

Another place we saw a big difference is on that question of style that you mentioned before. We said every New York City mayor has their own style, do you approve or disapprove of Eric Adams' of style as mayor? Overall, 53%, amongst African Americans, that number goes to 67%. He's got more support, more confidence coming from that constituency, but aside from the question on style, it remains tepid at best.

Brian: Emily, were there enough AAPI New Yorkers, Asian Americans Pacific Islander New Yorkers in this poll to get a comparative read on them compared to Black and white New Yorkers? I see so many polls that unfortunately break down by Black, by Latino, by white and say, "Oh, but the Asian American sample size was too small to report." Do you have it in this poll?

Emily: Yes, there is an Asian American AAPI sampling broken out in the cross tabs. I think one number that stood out to me when you dive a little deeper into this poll on the question that Don just raised which is how concerned are you that a shooting in which a gunman targets people based on their race, religion, or ethnicity will happen in your neighborhood when you look at the crosshead pertaining to Asian New Yorkers, 81% are very or somewhat concerned that they'll be targeted by a gunman based on their ethnicity.

There's not a cross tab per religion. I think those findings would be interesting, too. I know it's a little harder to pull smaller sample sizes, but when it comes to the AAPI community, I think that is the statistic that stands out to me in this poll about violence.

Brian: Certainly, we know the rash of hate crimes against Asian American New Yorkers and some of the most high-profile media-reported crimes have been against Asian American New Yorkers so that would make sense and interesting about religion with so much public expression of antisemitism in particular right now. Here's our first listener comment and it comes from Twitter listener writes, "Don, are we down valuing fair too much?" I think the listener means if we say the approval ratings for good or excellent job are only 29%, but then we lump together fair or poor.

Say, "Oh, so many people disapprove, they only rate him fair or poor." Maybe that down values what people rate as a fair job. I think that's a fair question.

Don: I think it's a fair question, too. The questions on job approval, respondents were given four choices, excellent, good, fair, or poor. In a number of cases, a sizeable group indicated fair about a third in some cases. For example, on the overall question of job approval as I indicated before, 35% gave him a fair rating. Now, it's common for us to group excellent, good as positive. Think of it in terms of grades in school, A or B, you were proud when you came home with those. Fair or poor is somewhere between C and D, F. That is common for us to do it, but we still reported the four categories.

I think the mayor although he took exception to that would be very quick to say that in the long run, he would certainly like to have a constituency that rated his performance as better than just fair. It's early in his administration. One can expect that if indeed some of the policies that as Emily pointed out that the mayor has espoused that much of the general public is saying they're in favor with if those come to fruition. If safety, the feeling of safety is enhanced, then some of those people who are indicating fair could possibly move to rating him as good. I think that the manner in which we presented it is appropriate, is consistent with how we present numbers across many, many different politicians. We also did another thing which is a little bit wonky, where we considered simultaneously every single respondent's answer to every single one of the job approval questions, and we came up with a composite grade if you will. That composite grade across all these areas, not only the ones we talked about, the things like running schools, encouraging tourists, managing everyday city service, the overall grade of all New Yorkers when you consider every aspect of the mayor's performance is a collective fair.

While the mayor may take exception to fair being considered not good, in reality, it is not good. The choices were excellent, good, fair, or poor.

Emily: If I might add a little more on how Mayor Adams and his team responded to this job approval breakdown, their response was that two-thirds of the respondents rated the mayor's performance either fair or better. They did as Don noted, take exception to fair being broadly categorized as negative. He did say, and this is a good line that fair if it's a C, C is not an A, but it's also certainly not an F.

Some of the mayor's allies also brought up the fact that the polling was done among registered voters as opposed to New Yorkers overall, that maybe his approval ratings would be higher, but of course, he represents all New Yorkers, not just those who are registered voters.

Brian: The New York's in meh condition contingent being represented there. With Emily Ngo, political reporter for NY1 which commission the poll on how New York City and Eric Adams are doing right now, and Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, the Siena Poll, which conducted the study. Carol in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Carol.

Carol: Hi. I voted for Mayor Adams, and I like the fact that he would act for the subway system because this has been going on for too long, even before I was born.

Brian: You think this adding more police officers in particular.

Carol: The fact that he's got to clean it. [crosstalk]

Brian: No, go ahead.

Carol: The homelessness encampments. I'm glad that he's got to get rid of that. I think that because we just went through a pandemic, this whole city needs to be clean. I've been trying to get in touch with the sanitation commissioner and the commissioner of mental hygiene. I think they should collaborate and clean up the city, and gives these streets a real wash-it down. People need to realize that the mayor works with commissioners. You need to look at them also.

Brian: Carol, thank you very much. Call us again. Here's one of those listeners who would rate in their fair. Let's see what they mean by it. Evans in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Evans.

Evans: Good morning, Brian. How are you?

Brian: Good. How are you?

Evans: Good. Yes, I voted for the mayor. I believe he's doing a good job so far. The mayor have been there for a few months. So far, I'm very happy. To make a short story. My daughter who she's NYPD, during the election, she's properly against the mayor at NYPD. I spoke to her last week, and I told her, "Honey, what do you think of Mayor Adams now?" She told me, "Oh, so far not too bad, but I'm still waiting." I told her, "What has he done that make you happy?" Do you know what's the first thing she told me?

Brian: Yes?

Evans: She told me, "The new commissioner. She is good."

Brian: Keechant Sewell, the police commissioner.

Evans: Yes.

Brian: What is your daughter who's on the police force waiting to see? You said she's still waiting to see some things from Adams. Does it have to do with support?

Evans: Yes. We do speak almost every day. She told me, "Daddy, you know what I would like to do? I would like to see [inaudible 00:24:25]."

Brian: Line has dropped out too much. We'll take a break, and we'll continue in a minute, we'll pivot to some other aspects of these poll findings. We'll also talk about Adams' new housing plan announced yesterday. In fact, we haven't even touched on this from the poll, but I think it's fair to say we'll get our guests take that the thing that New Yorkers were most dissatisfied with in their neighborhoods was not even crime or public safety, it was affordable housing. We'll talk about why Eric Adams endorsed Kathy Hochul for governor yesterday. Stay with us.

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WNYC as we continue with Emily Ngo, political reporter for NY1, and Don Levy, director of the Siena College Research Institute, which did the Siena College Poll, finding Mayor Adams' approval rating in New York City is only 29%, and even lower on fighting crime and homelessness. We're inviting your calls if you voted for Eric Adams, first choice and the rank choice primary last year if he's down at 29% general approval, or even some people who voted for him last year, getting disenchanted so far from our callers, maybe not so much.

Emily, before we go, what do you make of Adams endorsing Hochul yesterday in the gubernatorial primary? One could argue that Tom Suozzi is closer to Adams on policy and the way he talks about crime.

Emily: Right. That's not to say that I'd expect Adams to endorse Tom Suozzi, who is way behind in fundraising in polling compared to Kathy Hochul, who's got a pretty good jump on both so as the incumbent, but he could have sat out and not endorsed anyone in this race, but indeed, he said he and Hochul, who are both newer to office, Hochul has only been governor since August, Adams has only been mayor since January, talked about where they're simpatico when it comes to crime-fighting and housing, getting subway ridership up, the childcare earned income tax credit increases.

He threw his support behind Kathy Hochul just days ahead of early voting, that is a blow to Tom Suozzi who was an early endorser of Mayor Adams, since campaign for mayor last year. They both call each other brother. Suozzi in responding to Adams' endorsement of Hochul said, "He's still my brother, but if he wants to drive down crime, then he needs the new governor." That was the Suozzi campaign response. Then, Adams in turn who was asked why he didn't endorse Suozzi, said that they're still brothers and brothers can disagree.

Certainly good for Kathy Hochul, showing up her support but she's pretty well ahead by a lot of metrics.

Brian: [inaudible 00:27:53] is certainly fundraising where she has a big lead. How are Suozzi and Jumaane Williams trying to go after her in the last stretch here?

Emily: Suozzi has aired a number of television ads. The last campaign fundraising reports support show that Kathy Hochul has $18.6 million cash on hand, Suozzi, by contrast, has only $2.7 million, and Jumaane Williams, the Public Advocate is way down there $130,000. Suozzi is on the air, a lot of ads hitting Kathy Hochul pretty directly, particularly on not being strong enough on public safety. He calls her a hypocrite on a number of issues. She did formally have a pretty strong rating from the NRA, but of course, she has helped usher in a comprehensive package of gun safety bills.

Pretty safe to say that through action, she's shown that she would stand up to the gun lobby and does worry about gun violence when to act on gun violence, and Williams has a fair amount of organic support. He has the backing of the Working Families Party. His running mate, Ana Maria Archila is out there with the Working Families Party and a number of other people. He gets a fair amount of press and coverage and airtime even if he can't afford to get on television by himself.

Brian: [inaudible 00:29:27] on guns, which pertains to the package of legislation that Hochul just signed?

Emily: Say that one more time, I'm sorry, you dropped out at the start of the question, Brian.

Brian: I was asking Don Levy if he's there about the new Siena College poll out this morning about the package of gun reform legislation that Governor Hochul just signed.

Don: What we find is that New Yorkers overwhelmingly support gun regulations, 76% say that a new law requiring the permit to get a semiautomatic rifle. New Yorkers overwhelmingly feel so that would be good for New York. Similarly, nearly 80% of New Yorkers would like to see the Supreme Court upheld New York's decades-old law that requires a license to carry a concealed handgun. Very strong support for those gun restrictions regulations amongst voters across all of New York State.

Brian: Emily, can we get back to this question of Mayor Adams' style and people liking Adams' style, I tend to think this does actually have implications for his potential long-term success because it would mean people want to be in his corner and want to root for him, and like his tone as a leader and things like that? I don't think Mayor de Blasio ever had that advantage of people liking his style. Maybe there's a difference there.

Emily: They definitely have differences in style, particularly when it comes to communication. When we see according to this poll that Mayor Adams' style is approved by majority of respondents I think that speaks a lot to the confidence with which he presents himself. He has a number of really good lines rhyming alliteration assonance that really get his point out there. When you repeat something enough, it starts to embed itself in New Yorkers' and voters' minds. He talks about GSD, getting stuff done. He talks about public safety being the prerequisite to prosperity.

He talks about not being new to this being true to this and I think that swagger which is exactly how he put it, gives a lot of people confidence in his style and and yes, does make people want to root for and that's what I read from this poll.

Brian: Don, a related thing that I saw in the poll results is that people rate him higher in some way or another, you can tell us how you asked the question than de Blasio.

Don: We did compare the current merit to the former mayor. We said well, Adams has only been mirror since January when you compare Adams' job performance to that a former Mayor de Blasio. Do you think that Adams doing a better job overall than de Blasio, et cetera? We found that 36% actually a higher percent than indicated they thought he was doing an excellent or good job say that they think that Adams is doing a better job overall than de Blasio did.

About the exact equal percentage 36% say about as well as de Blasio but only 17% say that they think that de Blasio did a better job than Adams is currently doing. Interesting amongst Republicans in New York City, 56% of Republicans currently say that they think Adams is doing a better job overall right now than de Blasio did.

Brian: Let's see if we can get another caller up here. Steven in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Steven.

Steven: Yes. Hello. Can you hear me?

Brian: Hey, there. Yes, we hear you. I'm here.

Steven: Oh, thank you. Thank you for taking my call. I just want to ask about the blaming game. Just like our current president. He is getting blamed for so many things that he has no control over. I support our new mayor, I 100% supported him before became mayor support policies. As you brought in about gun control, making the subways much safer place, and a while back, you couldn't very rarely would you see a police officer on the platform. Now, they're all over. I really support that and I just wonder why, for instance, about gas prices, where's the blame really belong?

How about these corporations that are making incredible profits and refusing to even really talk to the president about increasing production, about bringing things back online that are offline? That's really my comment for the day and thank you so much for taking my call. Love yourself.

Brian: Thank you so much for making your call and Don, [inaudible 00:34:42] in relation to president Biden and I didn't see any inflation questions, maybe I missed them on this poll even though this is the number one issue for many people right now, is that not seen as relevant to Mayor Adams?

Don: You were breaking up a second. Are you asking me about the previous caller's thoughts on the blame game?

Brian: Particularly, with respect to inflation. He brought it up in relation to Biden but I didn't see any inflation-related poll questions in your poll about New York City and Eric Adams. I wonder if you think it's not a city issue that's relevant to city policy.

Don: We did not have any economic questions, it was a sequence that we considered but ended up not going with inflation. We did ask the typical question if you think that the city is on the right track or is it head in the wrong direction. That's where both a political and economic question. That question did pick up that. Right now, only a third of New York City residents feel as though the city is on the right track, 56% moving in the wrong direction. I'll compare it very quickly to the poll that we're out with today, where we asked that same question right track wrong direction about the United States.

We saw a dramatic decline in the percentage of New York State voters, New York City voters as well who think that the country isn't headed on the wrong direction. Right now, 68% of all New York State residents, 58% of those in New York City say they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, so I think we pick up the feelings about inflation and economic insecurity in that question and certainly, we are hearing that loud and clear.

Brian: Let's get one more caller around here. Walid in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Hi, Walid.

Walid: Good morning, Brian. Longtime listener. Have a lot of respect for you, Brian, and everything that you do for us here in New York.

Brian: Thank you so much.

Walid: Mayor Adams has a dynamic personality a larger-than-life personality and it's exactly what this city needs at this time. The city's getting violent out of control. Mayor Adams the way he approaches issues, the way he gives his press conferences, again that swagger larger-than-life personality is exactly what we need as far as a leader. I also think, Brian, that Mayor Adams, he is such a unique politician, he's such a unique individual, he's able to say things that most politicians can't say. He's brazen, he's confident. He can say things that are politically uncus.

He can call out any group or organization, he can call out-- like, I just remember a couple of weeks ago, he called out Black Lives Matter on issues when it comes to crime and violence within the Black community, and he said, "Where's Black Lives Matter? Where's the movement now? We have little Black babies that die every single night in our communities, where are you guys now?" Again, with that personality, with that style, he's able to say things that most politicians can't.

I think in this city with the violence, with everything being on edge, he's able to do things and say things that most politicians are not able to articulate and it feels good to have such a strong leader in office right now.

Brian: That's really interesting. Thank you for your call, Walid. We appreciate it. Emily, in this little unscientific sample we've had, the way I framed the invitation to the callers. If you did vote for Eric Adams first choice in the primary last year, how's he doing according to you? Everybody who called in said, "Yes, actually pretty good."

Emily: It's a scientific poll. Good contrast against the scientific one that Don Levy and his colleagues at Siena College conducted, but yes, certainly, I think he does. Conversation is not to say that the mayor doesn't have a fair good excellent amount of support around the city and that's especially reflective in just people being on the same page in this poll on some of these policing and public safety policies but just bring close in loop talking about perspective versus reality that his confidence in his swagger and just what this last caller said about him being the voice, face, and personality that New York needs to meet this moment.

I think goes a long way. If you project the confidence that you could lead the city through a gun violence crisis through an economic crisis, then that takes you farther than someone whose style New Yorkers don't appreciate or find comfort in as much, but he's six months in the office, style takes you a certain number of steps. The substance needs to come soon, too. We saw with this long-delayed housing plan that he's getting around to it. It will take some time for the policies that he's implemented to produce results, but certainly, I do feel like we're waiting for some of those results now.

Brian: Let's just touch on that housing plan for a second before we run out of time. Reading from The New York Times write-up of this, it outlines five major housing initiatives, including expanding affordable housing by creating new incentives for developers to build residential units and new efforts by the city to preserve existing below-market units. I think every mayor says they're doing those two things. It also pledged to improve conditions in public and private homes to make modest increases in the city's programs that subsidize and support home ownership and to expand access to homeless shelters.

Then, it says while Mr. Adams' plan mentions the city's major housing issues, many of its solutions lack details and will require additional work. Here's a little snippet of the mayor from this announcement yesterday on one of those items that I mentioned there, home ownership.

Mayor Adams: Now, I want to put the dream of home ownership back in the hands of working people and remind New Yorkers that leaving this city isn't an option. We have a hemorrhaging of Black and brown families leaving New York because it's no longer affordable. We've decimated the middle class and we need to refocus our attention on stabilizing these families and stabilizing the city that they made prosperous.

Brian: Emily, last question, is that emphasis different? That last line from that Times excerpt that I read, while Adams' plan mentions the city's major housing issues, many of its solutions lack details and will require additional work. Did he announce the plan yesterday or did he just say stuff?

Emily: He did announce the plan. There's some nuance to it. It's pretty wide-reaching, but as with some of the other blueprints including economic recovery and even public safety and policing, more details are better. There are words and then there are details, but this concept of building wealth among Black and brown New Yorkers through home ownership is certainly something that elected officials in the past have touched on. This is a different messenger. It comes from a man who's only the second Black mayor in New York City history. That is more resonance there.

The poll that NY1 and Sienna College conducted found that most people do envision themselves living in New York City in five years 55%, but 36% envision themselves living elsewhere. You referenced this earlier, but a pretty large chunk find that it's not affordable in their neighborhoods. They're not satisfied that the affordability in their neighborhood's 63%. Homeownership is one thing. The rental market is another thing. There's a lot that's interconnected in some of the challenges the city is dealing with now.

Affordability of housing. Not being able to make rent can push you onto the streets that creates a homelessness issue. Not being able to afford rent or afford to buy a house or have a backyard can push you out of the city. The housing plan is a start, but more details are always appreciated by reporters.

Brian: Maybe no coincidence that he comes originally from Southeast Queens, which is one of the major centers of Black home ownership in New York City. We thank Emily Ngo, political reporter for Spectrum News NY1 and Don Levy, director of the Sienna College Research Institute, which does the Sienna poll. Thank you both so much for your time today.

Don: Thank you.

Emily: Thank you.

 

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