The NY Times reports:

The race to succeed former Representative Anthony D. Weiner is much closer than anticipated, according to the first public poll for the Sept. 13 special election.

According to a Siena Research Institute poll released Wednesday morning, 48 percent of likely voters in the Ninth Congressional District, which straddles Queens and Brooklyn, support the Democratic candidate, Assemblyman David I. Weprin, while 42 percent favor the Republican, Bob Turner, a retired business executive. That gap, which lies within the four percentage point margin of sampling error for the poll of 501 likely voters, is smaller than the surprisingly tight 20-point edge — 60 to 40 — that voters gave to Mr. Weiner over Mr. Turner in 2010.

Mr. Weiner, a seven-term incumbent who had been considered a strong contender in the 2013 mayoral election, resigned his Congressional seat on June 16 after acknowledging that he had sent sexually explicit online messages to at least six women. Party leaders then chose Mr. Weprin, the scion of a longtime Queens political dynasty, and Mr. Turner, who rode a wave of Tea Party angst to a stronger-than-anticipated defeat in 2010, to face off for the right to serve through the end of 2012. And since the district is strongly Democratic, Mr. Weprin had been pegged as the favorite.

But the race to succeed the fallen Mr. Weiner is not the only reason the race has attracted national attention. As a result of the 2010 census, New York must lose two Congressional seats, and some political observers believe that the Ninth District could be eliminated. So whoever wins Mr. Weiner’s seat could have a Congressional career lasting just 475 days.

Moreover, the race has offered both parties a sneak preview, perhaps, of what themes or issues may resonate with voters nationwide in next year’s elections. And the poll found that economic issues loom large: 66 percent of likely voters said that jobs and the federal deficit should be the top two priorities of their next congressman. By a two-to-one margin, they said that they supported the recent increase in the nation’s debt ceiling, as well as a tax increase for people making more than $250,000 a year, but opposed, by a margin of three to one, cutting entitlements like Medicare and Social Security.

Curiously, though, the poll did not ask voters about the one local issue that political analysts and residents say has dominated the race so far: whether Mr. Weprin, a Modern Orthodox Jew who observes the Sabbath, is the best pro-Israel candidate. After all, former Mayor Edward I. Koch, a staunch defender of Israel who ranked as the most popular political figure in the survey, with a favorable rating of 69 percent, crossed party lines to back Mr. Turner.

Good thing, meanwhile, that Mr. Weiner is not running. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents said that they had an unfavorable view of him, while only 27 percent had the opposite view. That unfavorable mark was the highest of any political figure in the survey, with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a distant second, with 53 percent unfavorable.

(Source: NY Times)