The latest revelation that Anthony Weiner continued to engage in sexually explicit conversations on the Internet following his 2011 resignation from Congress has dramatically hurt his standing in the race for New York City mayor, sending his unfavorability rating to an all-time high, a new poll from The Wall Street Journal-NBC 4 New York-Marist showed.
Among registered Democrats, including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, 25% support City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and 16% support Mr. Weiner, a 14 percentage point swing in Ms. Quinn's favor compared with a poll taken several weeks ago. The poll put Mr. Weiner in a statistical tie for second place with Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson, who had 14%, while Comptroller John Liu was at 7%
...
Mr. Weiner's unfavorability rating surged to 55% in the poll—the first to be taken since he admitted on Tuesday that he continued to send lewd messages and photos following his June 2011 resignation—compared with an unfavorability rating of 36% in June.
"These new revelations have cost Anthony Weiner the lead in the Democratic field," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "His negatives are at an all-time high. There's been a significant erosion in people's willingness to say he deserves another chance. They are more reluctant to grant that."
The Journal says this Marist poll puts Quinn back into clear frontrunner status.
I wouldn't go so far as that.
As the Quinnipiac poll showed yesterday, Weiner's stumbles may help Quinn get into the runoff, but she loses handily to Thompson once she gets there.
Also, de Blasio has gained from Weiner's loss of support and now is in second place in the Marist Likely Voter model.
So while Weinergate 2.0 helps all the candidates and puts Quinn back into a lead, it doesn't give her clear frontrunner status - she still has a rough road ahead of her if she makes the runoff.
It's going to be an interesting race - especially if de Blasio can capitalize on Weiner's fall.
This is the first time we've seen a poll with him garnering second place numbers.
Wow, talk about getting caught with his pants down! Literally!
ReplyDeleteThe man is a glutton for humiliation. The only way to stop him is through castration. Otherwise, he'll continue to break some "penis", I mean penal code.
He should stop running for mayor and create his own reality show. Call it "Sext and the City" or "Law and Order: Sexual Intent". The man needs an outlet!
He's really insane. The humiliation he went through today - and for what? He has no chance to win, he's in worse shape for a future political career than had he never entered this race. It's hard to figure what his goal is here - unless it's simply about exhibitionism and attention. Because he certainly is getting a lot of exposure and a lot of attention.
Delete