NYC Poll Shocker Puts Weiner in Second Place

Anthony Weiner’s entrance into New York City’s already volatile mayoral race would fundamentally shake it up, results of a new poll out late Tuesday night show.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, long the heavy favorite among the minority of voters who made their preference known so far, retains the top spot with 26 percent support. But Weiner, a former Democratic congressman who resigned in a scandal last year, grabbed 15 percent in the first poll since he indicated in a series of interviews that he may run for mayor.

Weiner edges out the three other candidates considered credible who have been campaigning for the past few years, Public Advocate bill de Blasio, former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, and John Liu, the current comptroller. They all got 11-12 percentage points in the NBC New York/Marist College poll.

A candidate would need to garner 40 percent to avoid a runoff, which Quinn drew close to several weeks ago. But a slew of hard hitting ads and negative media coverage, as well as Weiner’s bombshell announcement last week that he may seek the job leading the Big Apple, knocked her down by the double digits.

But the bad news for Weiner is that there are few people who are unfamiliar with him.

“100 percent name recognition and just 15 percent ballot support?” wondered Nate Silver, who runs The New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog. “That’s an ugly poll for Weiner, not an encouraging one.”

As little as two years ago, Weiner was considered the frontrunner for the 2013 mayoral race. With a $4 million campaign chest and nearly universal name recognition, he regularly topped poll results. But following his implosion, his favorability ratings plunged.

People interviewed by the pollsters who now say they would not vote for Weiner often say so in striking terms.

“Oh, Anthony Weiner, he annoys … me,” Mary Reynolds, a 70-year-old who lives in Weiner’s former Brooklyn congressional district, said. “He’s a spineless person. I would not vote for him at all.”

But some positive findings in the poll for Weiner include a 45 percent favorability rating, 11 points higher than just two months ago. And the number of voters with an unfavorable impression of him remains at 41 percent.

“These are not great numbers, but from his perspective, he’s trending more positive,” said Lee Miringoff, director of Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “He’s obviously polarizing, with a high negative rating. But when he gets into a field that’s not well formed, he does fall into second place and becomes a player in this.”

Poll results show that Wiener takes his votes from all other candidates, although de Blasio loses the most. If Weiner were to not end up running, Quinn’s lead would jump to 30 percent and de Blasio would be second with 15 percent, Thompson with 14 percent and Liu with 11 percent.

Overall, 50 percent of Democrats said they wouldn’t consider voting for Weiner.

But Errol Louis, the NY1 host who interviewed Weiner this week, wrote in a Daily News opinion piece not to count him out.

“Republicans inclined to gloat about the prospect of Weiner throwing the Democratic primary into chaos should be careful what they wish for,” Louis wrote. “None of them has developed the kind of policy proposals — some quixotic, others intriguing — that Weiner released.”

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the April 18th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.