New Yorkers apparently aren’t thrilled that Mayor Michael Bloomberg approved a middle-of-the-night raid on Occupy Wall Street’s Zuccoti Park encampment, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
New York City voters disapprove 51%-42% of the way Bloomberg handled the protesters. Respondents approve 50%-46% of the way the New York Police Department a handled the protests, according to the poll, and a little more than half — 52% — of respondents approve of the way the protests were conducted.
The police approval is an interesting data point. The NYPD has arrested hundreds of anti-Wall Street protesters over the course of several months, even pepper spraying some protesters who didn’t appear to pose a serious threat. A number of journalists were arrested trying to cover the movement, too. Bloomberg says the city did not prevent reporters from covering the protests.
Republicans approve of Bloomberg’s handling of the protests slightly more than Democrats, and there was no discernable gender gap in the results. But the results show a large racial gap: 60 percent of white voters approve of the NYPD’s handling of the protests, while 59 percent of black voters disapprove.
Occupy Wall Street’s epicenter has grown more diffuse since the genesis of the movement in lower-Manhattan several months ago. A shocking pepper-spraying incident on campus at UC Davis captured recent headlines, and Occupy protesters in Oakland shut down the Port of Oakland in early November. More recently, police arrested Occupy Boston protesters.
Read the full poll results here.
