Former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner leads a pack of Democrats seeking to be New York’s next mayor, topping City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for the first time, a voter survey shows.
Weiner led with 25 percent of registered Democrats compared with 20 percent for Quinn, according to the Wall Street Journal- NBC New York poll, the newspaper said today. The survey, with a margin of error for Democrats of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, was conducted last week by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, New York.
It’s the worst showing for Quinn, who’s been considered the frontrunner for months, since polling for the race began. In a May Marist survey, Quinn led Democrats at 24 percent to Weiner’s 19 percent. Lee Miringoff, director of the institute, said poll results would be released to the public tomorrow.
Weiner, 48, resigned after 12 years in the House of Representatives two years ago after posting lewd online photographs of himself, then falsely claiming that hackers victimized him. He has mounted his campaign without support from the traditional political building blocks such as Democratic Party organizations, labor unions or elected officials.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the city by about 6-to-1 among registered voters. If no candidate gets 40 percent in a Sept. 10 primary, the top two finishers in each party will compete in an Oct. 1 runoff.
Republican Leader
On the Republican side, Joe Lhota, the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, led with 28 percent, the Journal said. John Catsimatidis, a self-made billionaire, trailed with 21 percent, the newspaper said.
The June 17-21 poll of 1,118 registered voters reached 689 Democrats and had a margin of error of plus or minus 8.8 percentage points for the 123 Republicans sampled, the Journal said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP, is barred by law from seeking a fourth term in City Hall.
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