The NY Times reports: He is comfortably ahead in the polls. He has the vast powers of incumbency at his disposal. He has the backing of the city’s most powerful business interests.

But that does not seem to be enough for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

As his campaign sought to overpower any candidate considering challenging him, Mr. Bloomberg commissioned a telephone poll last month that spread derogatory information about Representative Anthony D. Weiner, one of the mayor’s possible rivals in the race.

The calls came around mid-March, even as Mr. Weiner announced he was not certain he would run for mayor.

In interviews, several people who received the telephone calls said that they were told when they picked up the phone that a survey was being conducted, but were soon asked a series of questions featuring negative information about Mr. Weiner.

The questions began benignly enough: Are you registered to vote? Do you plan to vote in the mayoral election? But then they shifted to Mr. Weiner, asking whether the person’s views of Mr. Weiner would be altered if he or she knew of certain problems involving Mr. Weiner, from missing votes in Congress to having difficulty keeping staff to accepting campaign donations from foreign fashion models.

“At first I thought it was a market research thing,” said Sandra Kane, a 67-year-old registered Democrat from Forest Hills, Queens. “As the questions got more mud-slinging, I said to myself: ‘I’m not hanging up now; I want to see where this is going.’ ”

Mr. Weiner’s camp alerted The New York Times about the calls.

One of the Congressman’s aides said that the calls seemed suspiciously like push-polling — a technique disavowed by reputable pollsters in which phone calls disguised as survey research are used to spread negative information about an opponent.

Joel Benenson, a senior campaign adviser to Mr. Weiner, described push-polling as “one of the most discredited and dishonorable forms of negative campaigning.”

Asked if the Bloomberg campaign had commissioned the telephone messages, Howard Wolfson, a Bloomberg spokesman, declined to respond directly. But Mr. Wolfson denied that the campaign had engaged in any push-polling.

“Unfortunately for Congressman Weiner, the fact that he takes money from lobbyists and special interests, misses votes and has not passed any significant legislation isn’t a push poll — it’s his record,” Mr. Wolfson said.

A person familiar with the Bloomberg campaign confirmed that the poll was Mr. Bloomberg’s.

The issues highlighted in the telephone calls closely echoed negative stories that have appeared in city newspapers about Mr. Weiner, and that the congressman’s aides have accused opposition researchers from the Bloomberg campaign of planting.

Mr. Bloomberg has drawn criticism for his re-election strategy, which involves shunning the city’s campaign finance limits and spending $80 million or more of his own money on his bid for another term.

People involved in his strategy discussions told The Times late last year that at least $20 million of that money would be used to drive up negative views about Mr. Weiner, should he emerge as the Democratic candidate.

The Bloomberg campaign has assembled a team of top strategists, some known for aggressive tactics, as well as a researcher who is looking into the records of the mayor’s opponents.

Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause, said the episode underscored the dangers of a candidate with unlimited resources.

“It just goes to show, if you have too much money in your campaign, you don’t use it productively,” she said. “He’s hired so many consultants who are looking for something to do.”

Several individuals who received the phone calls contacted Mr. Weiner’s aides, who provided their names and numbers to The Times. In interviews, some said that they did not necessarily plan to support Mr. Weiner but felt that he should be told of the information that was being disseminated about him.

Jeff Goldsmith, a lawyer from Whitestone, Queens, was at home watching television when he got a phone call. He said that the questions were asked about what he called “hot-button” issues, including assertions that Mr. Weiner took money from lobbyists and voted to give himself a raise.

But one question that jumped out at him involved Mr. Weiner’s “association with European models,” an apparent reference to the fact that the congressman had once introduced a bill that would make it easier for foreign fashion models to get United States work visas.

“By the time I was through the entire poll, I thought it was ridiculous,” said Mr. Goldsmith, who said he did not know who he would support in the mayor’s race.

The questions also grabbed the attention of a 54-year-old registered Democrat who said he was sitting at home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, one Saturday working on his computer when he received the call.

The man, a member of a city union who asked not to be identified because he did not want to create problems for himself at work, said he was familiar with the concept of push-polling and considered the call to be a form of it.

The questions, he recalled, accused Mr. Weiner of taking contributions from lobbyists and of securing federal funding for an organization whose members had contributed to his campaign.

The man, who said that he did not expect to support Mr. Weiner in the mayoral race, said: “It was not a poll designed to assess where the voting public was. It was designed to take votes away from Weiner.”