NEW YORK CITY — Mayor Bill de Blasio's poll numbers have jumped to 50 percent from a near record-low of 45 percent in October, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
A higher percentage of voters — 48 percent — also say the mayor deserves a second term.
“Not great, but better news for Mayor Bill de Blasio on two key questions: His overall job approval and whether he deserves reelection," Quinnipiac University Poll Assistant Director Maurice Carroll said in a statement.
“If the mayor was a schoolboy, he’d probably be happy taking this report card home to Mom and Dad."
In the last Quinnipiac poll, 45 percent of voters approved of the job de Blasio was doing and 46 percent disapproved. Voters, by a margin of 48 percent to 42 percent, also didn't think the mayor deserved a second term.
De Blasio, who has announced that he plans to seek a second term, is still leading potential challengers at the halfway point of his administration. If the election were held now, de Blasio would beat Comptroller Scott Stringer in a Democratic Primary 44 percent to 33 percent, according to the poll.
If former Police Chief Ray Kelly ran as an independent, de Blasio would win 50 percent of the vote compared to 35 percent. And Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. would lose 47 to 25 percent.
All three men have been critical of de Blasio's tenure, with Stringer conducting stinging audits of the city's shelter system, Kelly making an unfounded accusation that the city was cooking crime statistics and Diaz questioning the mayor's management and leadership during a deadly outbreak of Legionnaire's disease in The Bronx.
“Mayor de Blasio is ahead in some hypothetical general election races,” Carroll said, "but Comptroller Scott Stringer and former Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who haven’t announced their intentions, are in the running."
De Blasio has said that he has not done a good job of letting the public know about his administration's accomplishments or explaining his plans.
Since then, the mayor has embarked on a strategy of interacting more with the public, hosting town hall meetings and taking questions from the public regularly on the radio.
A bruising public feud with Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears to have calmed a bit and the mayor has reined in his earlier focus on national issues and decreased his travel outside of the city.
“The mayor is about doing the J-O-B, not looking at a P-O-L-L," said his spokeswoman Karen Hinton.
"Mayor de Blasio will continue to build on the accomplishments of the last two years. All New Yorkers are benefiting, and that is what matters to him.”
