A strong majority of New York voters - including about half of Republicans - believe Rep. George Santos should resign from Congress amid the ongoing scandal tied to his history of lying, according to a new poll released Monday.
Some 59% of voters called for Santos' resignation in a new Siena College poll, against 17% who said he should stay in office. (The rest did not know or had no opinion.)
Almost half of Republicans, 49% in total, called for him to go, as well as 54% of those who identified themselves as politically conservative. More than 7 out of every 10 suburban voters said he should leave office - a tough result for Santos, whose 3rd District is mostly suburban Nassau County.
To the extent Santos had any "support" at all in the poll, it was among Latino voters, of whom only 33% said he should definitely resign, against 24% who said he should not. (Nearly half of Latino voters surveyed said they didn't know or had no opinion, which was by far larger than any other demographic polled.)
Separately, Siena also asked voters if they had a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Santos. At -40, he had by far the worst net rating in the poll, even lower than Donald Trump's -33.
The online and telephone poll of 821 registered voters was conducted Jan. 15-19 and has a margin of error of 4.3 percentage points.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
"It's a soap opera, in effect," said Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, one of the New York Republicans urging Santos, whom he called "somewhat delusional," to step aside. "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."
While he has been parodied on "Saturday Night Live" and a the late-night comedy shows (Santos offered his criticism of the performances, saying in a tweet that Jon Lovitz's impression was "embarrassing — for him not me"), the embattled Republican's position on two committees in D.C. is no laughing matter for those who wish to see him out of office.
Santos was back in Washington on Monday, though his staff there nor at the Douglaston district office issued any comment. Through his Twitter account, Santos said he had a "surprise" for the gaggle of reporters he had been dodging since the falsehoods came to light.
