Poll: Most support Wall Street protest
Occupy Wall Street protesters at a standoff with police outside Cipriani Wall Street restaurant. Protesters believed the mayor was eating there and wanted to drop off petitions asking him not to evict them from their protest site. (Oct. 13, 2011) Credit: Charles Eckert
More New York voters view the monthlong Occupy Wall Street protests favorably than unfavorably, although suburban residents are more critical, a new Siena College Research Institute poll found.
The poll, released Tuesday, found 49 percent of voters statewide have a favorable view of the protests on Wall Street and around the nation, while 38 percent see them unfavorably.
In the suburbs, 41 percent had a favorable opinion of the protests while 45 percent viewed them negatively.
However, pollster Steven Greenberg said the poll found significant support in suburban areas for the protesters' views. In an interview, Greenberg noted that 47 percent of suburban voters agreed with the sentiment that the protesters "represent the 99 percent of people that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the remaining one percent."
Only 36 percent agreed with the more negative description: "mostly out-of-work young people copying the protesters in Cairo, with the potential to cause those kinds of riots here."
Statewide and in the suburbs, more voters expressed sympathy for the Wall Street demonstrations (about 47 percent) than for the tea party movement (28 percent). The telephone poll of 800 voters, conducted Oct. 10-12, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
Kery Murakami
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