Almost half of registered Republicans in New York agree Rep. George Santos should resign amid a slew of controversies enveloping the politician, a recent Siena College Research Institute Poll has found.
The Monday poll determined that 59% of surveyed registered voters believe Santos should resign while only 17% believe he should remain in office, and that at least 56% have an unfavorable view of the representative.
The poll also detailed that at least 49% of Republican voters believe Santos should resign from Congress compared to 17% of Republicans who say he shouldn’t.
“Voters overwhelmingly view Santos unfavorably, including 55% of Democrats, 56% of Republicans and 59% of independents. Again, downstate suburbanites lead the state, 76%, in their unfavorable view of Santos,” Steven Greenberg, a Siena College pollster said.
“It is fascinating that Santos has gone from largely unknown freshman representative-elect to being more well known to New Yorkers than Brooklyn’s Hakeem Jeffries, just elected to his sixth term and the new US House minority leader. Although it must be pointed out that Jeffries is viewed favorably, 33-20%.”
The poll was conducted among 821 registered voters between January 15 and January 19.
Investigations into Santos are underway after he admitted to lying about his educational background, as well as his work history. The representative made false claims he had received degrees from New York University and Baruch College, and had worked for Goldman Sachs as well as Citigroup. Santos even fabricated stories about his religion while on the campaign trail.
As Santos’ admission to lying on his resume went viral, new insights into his personal life came to the surface with a former Santos acquaintance claiming he had performed as a drag queen while growing up in Brazil.
“George had disappeared for a little while, and then returned to Brazil with a lot of money, and that was about the same time when the picture was taken,” said Eula Rochard, Santo’s former acquaintance. Rochard reportedly stated that while Santos has “changed a lot” he “was always a liar.”
"If Santos had any fantasy about the public being willing to forgive him for his transgressions, the Siena poll basically blows that out of the water," said Lawrence Levy, dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.
"It's a soap opera, in effect," added Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and one of the New York republicans urging Santos to resign. "It's very clear to me that he has emotional issues and he needs to get help. And if he wants to rehabilitate his life, it starts with resigning from Congress."
Santos has yet to respond to the poll's findings; in fact, he posted to Twitter on Sunday that he was “looking forward to being back on Capitol Hill,” adding he has a “surprise” for the "journalists" he predicts will be “staked” outside his office. This statement was made by the representative a day before his disastrous poll results.