NEW YORK CITY — Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner is gaining ground on Council Speaker Christine Quinn in the race for the Democratic nomination, according to a Marist College poll released Tuesday.
According to the poll — the first since the former congressman announced his candidacy by online video on Wednesday — Weiner has the support of 19 percent of registered Democrats while Quinn is down to 24 percent, the lowest percentage in a Marist poll yet for the longtime frontrunner.
Both are polling ahead of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio (12 percent) and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson (11 percent). All other candidates remain in the single digits, the poll found. Nearly a quarter of Democratic voters remain undecided, the poll found.
The survey indicates the race is tightening: Marist's last poll in April found Quinn had the support of 26 percent of voters as Weiner, amid speculation he would enter the race, was the favorite of 15 percent of those polled.
The Marist poll also included questions about a potential runoff election, in the event none of the candidates garner the necessary 40 percent of the vote to win the primary. The survey indicated Quinn would best Weiner 48 percent to 33 percent in a runoff ballot, with 18 percent of voters undecided.
"The Democratic primary for mayor remains wide open," said Lee M. Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "It is likely to come down to who can punch their ticket for the runoff."
The poll also found that a majority of New York City voters — 53 percent — believe Weiner deserves "a second chance" after the sexting scandal that forced him to resign from the House of Representatives in 2011, though 40 percent do not believe he has "the character to be mayor" and 8 percent are unsure.
The telephone survey of 1,001 New Yorkers, conducted from May 22-24, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Questions that were directed only at Democrats have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
