The mayor’s approval rating — down to 32% in a Quinnipiac poll released this week — has promoted a flurry of analysis. One national newspaper went so far as to accuse New Yorkers of “whining.”

Our own view is that New Yorkers are smarter than they are given credit for. By our lights, the real stunning information in the Quinnipiac poll has less to do with the mayor’s low job-performance ratings from the voters and more to do with the reasons why they are so low. There’s an attempt under way to ascribe the low ratings to Mayor Bloomberg’s personal wealth, his prickly personality, or to the fact that he has threatened to cut the city’s budget and lay off city workers. But there’s no reason for such off-base speculation. The poll shows conclusively that the real reasons the mayor is so unpopular is that he hasn’t cut spending enough, he’s been too easy on the city’s unionized workers, and he’s been too quick to resort to raising taxes.

Let’s go to the particulars. The poll asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Michael Bloomberg is handling taxes?” The result was that 67% disapproved and 26% approved. Last year, the mayor backed an 18.5% increase in the property tax and a $1.42-a-pack increase in the city’s cigarette tax. This year, he’s supporting a 16% increase on marginal rates for non-federal income taxes for those making more than $100,000 a year, along with increases in the sales tax that will affect everyone.

Some might try to explain away this poll result by saying that the public thinks that the mayor is mishandling taxes by not raising them enough. Another question in the poll addresses that misperception. It asked, “Mayor Bloomberg is trying to balance the city budget. Do you think he should raise taxes, cut spending, or borrow money?” Only 20% of the 757 registered voters surveyed said Mr. Bloomberg should raise taxes. Cutting spending was the choice of 37%. Not even union households support raising taxes, despite the positions taken by some of the more outspoken union leaders. The poll showed that voters from union households preferred spending cuts to tax increases, 35% to 26%. Among blacks, spending cuts were favored over tax increases, 33% to 16%. Of Hispanics, 11% favored tax cuts, while 38% favored spending cuts.

Asked where the city should cut spending, voters overwhelmingly preferred cutting “social services” and “culture and recreation.” Police, fire, and school spending were less popular areas to cut. The poll didn’t explore some of the obvious spending cuts The New York Sun has suggested, like selling off the mayoral mansion or bringing New York’s costs for jails and Medicaid in line with those of other states.

And, the poll showed, the voters seem to want the mayor to get tough with the public employee unions. Are union work ers doing their fair share to ease New York City’s financial problems? No, said 47% of those who answered. Only 41% said yes.

The mayor, the City Council, and some of the newspapers may not like to admit it, but the people of New York can see what’s going on around them. Neighboring states have lower income-tax and sales-tax rates and still provide decent services. Tax increases are not necessary, because if waste were reduced and New York’s jails, schools, and hospitals were run as efficiently as those in other cities and states, there’d be enough money saved to balance the budget without substantial reductions in services. Mayor Giuliani cut taxes, and the city responded with a resounding economic boom.

All of this presents a tremendous political opportunity for a candidate, either Republican or Democrat, who is willing to challenge Mr. Bloomberg on the issues.

Some potential contenders may be scared away by Mr. Bloomberg’s personal wealth, which he will no doubt use, as is his constitutional right, to spend on campaign commercials trying to convince voters that raising taxes was the right thing. But the voters are already being bombarded by commercials from unions and hospitals calling for tax increases, not to mention by Mr. Bloomberg’s mayoral press conferences and by the editorials and news accounts in the national newspaper, which supports the tax increases. And, to judge by the poll results, the voters seem to have kept their wits about them despite that barrage.

The election of 2005 is still a long way away. It’s possible that the economy will have recovered by then, and that some taxes will be cut just in time for the election. Still, the way things look today, there’s fertile ground for a tax rebellion if a leader will rise to the occasion — and if, by 2005, all those wonderful street-smart New York voters who prefer spending cuts to tax increases haven’t already moved away to New Jersey, Connecticut, or Florida.