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Poll: De Blasio's Job Approval Rating Sinks To 35 Percent

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- ANew Yorkers were speaking out Friday after Mayor Bill de Blasio's job approval rating fell to its lowest level since taking office.

As CBS2 Political Reporter Marcia Kramer reported, an ongoing federal probe into de Blasio's campaign financing and the NYPD, and a whole lot of other things, apparently influenced how city residents view the mayor.

The Wall Street Journal poll of registered voters found just 35 percent of people think de Blasio's doing an "excellent" or "good" job while 62 percent say he's doing "fair" or "poor."

A majority of registered voters, 51 percent, also say the city's heading in the wrong direction.

It was not good news for a man who is gearing up to seek reelection next year.

The ongoing federal probe – which focuses on officers accepting gifts from businessmen with ties to de Blasio, as well as how the mayor collects donations from real estate interests – appears to be taking its toll.

"I think there's too much real estate-controlled interests driving everything. It's very interesting, and especially with the donations that he's gotten and his nonprofit," said Erin Mara of Astoria, Queens, "You can market yourself as a progressive, but if you're taking money from rich special interest groups that have their own agenda, that is not what you promised people."

Over the last weeks and months, CBS2 has demanded answers from the mayor on a variety of topics – crime, the increase in stabbings and slashings, stop-and-frisk, and the homeless among them.

Back in July, Kramer confronted de Blasio with a picture of a homeless man who takes a daily bath with soap in the fountain at Columbus Circle. When asked what he could do about it, de Blasio responded, "We're going to enforce quality-of-life offenses."

In the wake of the poll, Kramer asked New Yorkers Friday what is wrong with the city. Many complained about quality-of-life offenses.

"We have a problem with homeless people in the area," said Judy Bushman of Astoria. "Come the summertime, they sleep on benches. There's garbage everywhere."

"We need stop and frisk again," said Lou Mirra of Astoria. "Since they stopped it, everybody's getting slashed. Women are getting raped."

"What has he done right? The homeless is worse, the unemployment is just as bad. I don't know what direction we're going in," said Dominic Canastra of Astoria. "I'll never vote for him again. I made a mistake."

Mayoral spokeswoman Karen Hinton told the Wall Street Journal that polls "go up and down, like a playground seesaw."

"Governing is real work," she said.

But Kramer said the latest numbers will be food for thought for those thinking of running against de Blasio in the 2017 election, which will come around in 18 months.

The poll of 767 registered voters in New York City was taken between Sunday and Wednesday. The margin of error for citywide results was plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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