Hours before the candidates face off in the first official NYC mayoral debate, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio leaped ahead as the new frontrunner in the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. With less than 4 weeks to go, Bill de Blasio leads as the choice in the Democratic race for New York City mayor with 30 percent of likely primary voters, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

The surprising results puts City Council Speaker Christine Quinn in second place with 24 percent of the vote, former Comptroller Bill Thompson in third with 22 percent and former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner with only 10 percent. John Liu has the support of 6 percent with 1 percent for former Council member Sal Albanese and 7 percent undecided. Rev. Erick Salgado, who was at 3% among registered voters in the most recent Siena poll, wasn’t polled.

Black voters now give the edge for Bill Thompson, who leads the pack with 39 percent of likely primary voters, with 22 percent for de Blasio and 18 percent for Quinn. White voters go 39 percent for de Blasio, 31 percent for Quinn and 12 percent for Thompson.

The poll also shows Mr. de Blasio beating Thompson and Quinn in hypothetical run-off match-ups, beating Ms. Quinn 54-36, Mr. Thompson 50-41 and Mr. Weiner a whopping 72 – 22.

“A few weeks ago, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio looked like an also-ran. Today, he’s the leader of the pack, and a winner in the runoffs. Follow the bouncing ball, folks. This line-up keeps changing,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

“Nobody thinks former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner will pack it in, but 52 percent of likely Democratic primary voters wish he’d go away and 51 percent say they’d never vote for him,” Carroll added.

Mr. Carroll attributted Mr. de Blasio’s bounce to his unwavering opposition to stop-and-frisk, which a federal judge yesterday ruled unconstitutional.

“Two related issues which seem to resonate with Democratic voters are stop-and-frisk and the creation of an inspector general for the New York Police Department. U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin did her part for the voters by appointing a federal monitor for the NYPD. If politicians follow the poll results too, the NYPD is going to get still another outside monitor,” he said.

Despite the huge lead, the race for mayor remains volatile. Only 46 percent of those polled said they would definitely stick with their current preferred candidate. As voters have just begun tuning in, Mr. de blasio remains the candidate with the weakest base of support. Only 38 percent of de Blasio voters said they were definite with their choice, versus 54 percent of Mr. Thompson’s supporters and 42 percent of Ms. Quinn’s.

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(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)