Cuomo Slides In Popularity - And The Bigger Slide Is To Still To Come

The Post reports the state GOP thinks Cuomo is a little more vulnerable these days

Controversy over the gun-control law Cuomo pushed through the Legislature in January following the Newtown, Conn., school massacre helped drive the first-term Democrat’s job approval ratings from 74 percent last December to 55 percent last month in Quinnipiac University polls.

The latest survey found him losing in the New York suburbs and upstate to GOP Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey in a hypothetical presidential run.

“The drop in Cuomo’s approval offers the chance for Republicans to seriously take him in this election,” said DC-based GOP political strategist Ron Bonjean, who previously served as a top aide to GOP leadership in the House and Senate. “It also has the potential of dragging Cuomo further into the political quicksand.”

The GOP believes Cuomo has begun making other politically exploitable missteps, including:

* Delaying a decision on whether to green-light the controversial, natural-gas drilling technique known as fracking, which has divided the state.

* Obtaining luxury seats for himself and top aides at the Buffalo Bills’ stadium in a deal to keep the state’s only NFL team from leaving.

* Cutting aid for the developmentally disabled and planning an election-year tax rebate for families while other taxes and fees increase.

Cuomo's former pal, Fred Dicker, writes in today's Post that Cuom faces a "lose-lose" on the fracking decision that is sure to further drive down his numbers:

Gov. Cuomo is paralyzed with indecision on “fracking’’ for natural gas because it’s a “lose-lose’’ situation where even Southern Tier residents who should benefit financially will be bitterly disappointed, a highly placed political source has told The Post.

Cuomo, who has dithered for more than two years on whether to OK the drilling process, which is used safely in nearly 30 other states, fears that his planned “toughest-in-the-nation” regulations and low natural-gas prices have combined to make it unlikely major gas companies would make the investments needed to develop new wells, the source said.

“His fear is that if he gives the go-ahead, nothing is going to happen, the gas companies won’t come in because of overregulation, and gas-price economics and the people [in the] Southern Tier will then say, ‘Look, Cuomo killed it another way.’

“Cuomo’s regulators plan to impose almost impossible restrictions, natural-gas prices are way down, and the governor knows that the less valuable ‘dry’ natural gas is in the [Southern Tier’s] Marcellus Shale, not the valuable ‘wet’ gas that the companies are going after now,’’ the source continued.

“The drilling decision is, and has been all along, about what the governor can gain from it, and right now, he doesn’t see himself gaining anything, whatever he does,’’ explained the source, who has strong ties to Cuomo’s campaign contributors.

After telling associates for nearly two years he believed natural-gas drilling could be conducted safely, Cuomo developed cold feet late last year in the wake of an increasingly aggressive “anti’’ movement led by environmental activists, including his former brother-in-law and uncle to his three daughters, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who say the process is dangerous.

Cuomo, who has publicly claimed for three years — from when he began running for governor — that the “science and not the politics” would guide his decision, now maintains that he’s merely awaiting a final recommendation from state Health Commissioner Dr. Nirav Shah, supposedly expected within days.

But few close to Cuomo believe that’s the case. Many say that the governor — who has taken a radical turn to the political left since the start of the year — is being guided by political considerations alone.

A Cuomo spokesman denied that the governor was holding off on a decision for political reasons.

Of course Hamlet on the Hudson Jr. is holding up the fracking decision for political reasons.

Because whichever decision he makes, he stands to lose substantial support.

If he decides to go ahead with fracking, he loses support from liberals and environmentalists; if he decides to ban fracking in NY State for good, he makes his business cronies and Wall Street donors (not to mention Rupert Murdoch and Fred Dicker) very unhappy.

So unless Cuomo finds some magical way to thread the needle on the issue and never make a decision one way or the other, he stands to lose more support in the coming months and drop below that 50% range.

Couple that with the controversial sports stadium giveaway to the Bills, the gun law that has pissed off some former supporters, and his extension of taxes on his wealthy base in the latest budget and the ethically-challenged Cuomo has a whole bunch of trouble coming on both the right and the left of the political spectrum.

Make no mistake - liberals and environmentalists do not trust him on fracking any more than his business cronies and fracking proponents do.