De Blasio: Iowa Poll Numbers A Sign Americans Turning Against Trump
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio, the New York City Council and many leading Republicans are among those who have ripped into Donald Trump. And with the Iowa caucuses arriving in a month and a half, the billionaire businessman's numbers are dwindling in some polls in the Hawkeye State.
De Blasio said Monday the American people are turning against what he called a "hateful attitude."
"I think that Donald Trump went too far and started to say things that were just dangerous, and it registered with a lot of people, including a lot of Republicans, and that's part of what's happening," de Blasio told WCBS 880's Rich Lamb.
The mayor added that "Americans, in general, believe in respect and tolerance."
A poll released last week by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg News showed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz leading Trump in Iowa for the Republican nomination by 10 percentage points (31 to 21).
Nationally, however, Trump, who last week called for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, is gaining even more momentum, according to a Monmouth University poll released Monday.
That survey shows 41 percent of GOP-leaning voters supporting Trump. Cruz is in second with 14 percent. Monmouth's previous poll, in mid-October, had Trump with 28 percent.
"The more that Donald Trump goes out there and says something outrageous, the more he actually makes the Republican establishment squirm, the more voters he attracts to his side because that's exactly what they want," Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, told WCBS 880. "They don't care what he's saying. It's the fact that he's shaking up the establishment that seems to be what's driving his support right now."
Meanwhile, without mentioning Trump by name, Gov. Andrew Cuomo clearly took aim at the Republican front-runner at the annual National Immigrant Integration Conference in Brooklyn on Monday, WCBS 880's Ginny Kosola reported.
"You want to build walls. You want to keep the Muslims out," Cuomo said. "We believe in freedom of religion. It was one of the founding premises of the entire country.
"It's not your land. It's our land. It's the land of immigrants," the governor added.
