New Marist Poll Out Tonight Shows Momentum For Bill De Blasio

The de Blasio momentum is for real:

The topsy-turvy race for New York's Democratic mayoral nomination has shifted again, with Public Advocate Bill de Blasio surging to a statistical tie with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and former comptroller Bill Thompson in striking distance, a new poll shows.

Disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, meanwhile, has been unable to stanch the fallout from his admission last month that his online sexual relationships with women continued after he resigned from Congress in 2011.

In a few short weeks, Weiner dropped from first to an apparent fourth place spot, according to the NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist Poll.

The poll, conducted Monday through Wednesday, found Quinn's support at 24 percent, statistically unchanged from the last poll in July. De Blasio jumped to 21 percent from 14 percent.

Thompson followed at 16 percent, just a couple points higher from July, and Weiner dropped to 12 percent from 16 percent.

More good news for de Blasio in this poll and bad news for Quinn:

De Blasio now stands as the race's best-liked candidate, with 59 percent of Democrats saying they had a favorable impression of him, and 14 percent saying they didn't.

Quinn, by contrast, has seen her image deteriorate. Once the clear front-runner, she is the Democratic candidate with the closest association with Bloomberg, and now suffers from a rising unfavorability rating. In February, 17 percent of Democrats said they didn't think positively of her; this week, the number jumped to 32. Still, 54 percent of Democrats said they had a favorable impression of her.

Harry Enten notes that Quinn can't move out of the mid-twenties - either up or down.

She seems to have hit her floor and her ceiling.

De Blasio is now going to have withstand a few weeks of heavy scrutiny.

But if you're looking for de Blasio to replace Bloomberg, things are looking pretty good right now.

Quinn has a ceiling of support, Quinn's unfavorability ratings are rising, Weiner continues to plummet, and de Blasio has excellent favorability ratings and continues to gain support.

One note of caution about the de Blasio momentum, however.

Thompson just starting running his ads this week, he has lots of union support, and there is still the question of whether these public polls are undercounting his support in the black community.

Plus lots of people are still making up their minds and are subject to changing what they are telling pollsters.

So I wouldn't count Bill Thompson out just yet.

But Christine Quinn, with her ceiling of support in the mid-twenties and her unfavorability ratings rising, is in serious trouble.

She can't win a runoff with these kinds of numbers - and the Marist poll tonight bears that out once again.