Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Quinnipac Poll: De Blasio 66%, Lhota 25%

A second post-primary poll finds GOP mayoral nominee Joe Lhota has an uphill climb in this race:

Democrat Bill de Blasio hammers Republican Joe Lhota 66% to 25% in a mayoral matchup with a major racial gap, a new Quinnipiac Poll released Thursday shows.

The public advocate leads the ex-MTA chief by 30% or more among every age, income and education democraphic.

Lhota's negatives are way higher -- he's at a negative 30%-35% favorability rating, compared to de Blasio's positive 63%-21% score.

"Lhota’s only lead is among Republicans, 79% to 15% while de Blasio leads 82% to 11% percent among Democrats and 53% to 36% percent among independent voters," Quinnipiac's Mickey Carroll said.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC 4 New York/Marist Poll released Tuesday showed de Blasio beating Lhota by 43 points.

In Thursday's poll, de Blasio leads Lhota

* 52% to 40% among white voters;
* 90% to 3% among black voters;
* 68% to 18% among Hispanic voters;
* 63% to 29% among men;
* 69% to 21% among women;

“The same kind of coalition that won Public Advocate Bill de Blasio the Democratic primary is working for him in the general election campaign,” said Carroll. "He’s OK among white voters and gang-busters among black and Hispanic voters."

Looking at de Blasio’s qualities, New York City likely voters say:
·       64 – 16 % that he’s honest and trustworthy;
·       65 – 24 % that he has the right kind of experience to be mayor;
·       67 – 23 % that he understands their problems;
·       67 – 18 % that he has strong leadership qualities.
Looking at Lhota’s qualities, voters say:
·       39 – 29 % that he’s honest and trustworthy;
·       47 – 35 % that he has the right kind of experience to be mayor;
·       51 – 30 % that he does not understand their problems;
·       47 – 28 % that he has strong leadership qualities.

I posted earlier about how Lhota lost Staten Island in the primaries, another indication that he is going to have a lot of trouble winning this race.

Staten Island should be a slam dunk for a Republican, but he's not doing so well there because he raised the bridge toll and Staten Islanders are holding that against him.

Couple the problems he has in Staten Island with the approval problems he has lingering from the hammer job Catismatidis did on him in the primaries and you have a GOP candidate who starts this campaign in a significant hole.

The problem for Lhota here is that these blowout polls start to become self-fulfilling prophecies after a while if the trajectory doesn't change.

As was noted on Twitter:

Lhota really has only a few weeks to try and close the polls a bit and make people think he has an outside shot to win. 

Otherwise the big money people - the Bloomberg-types, the Koch Brothers and the like - are going to write the election off completely and look for other ways to get what they want here in NYC outside of helping Joe Lhota in a race that is starting to look hopeless for him.

This is not to say that de Blasio is a shoe-in by any means.

Just that unless something changes drastically, I do not think Joe Lhota can be elected mayor of this city.

He's got a major hole to climb out of, he's got serious temperament issues that have yet to be used against him (but will be if he starts to close the gap) and his approval is already underwater as a result of all those negative ads run against him in the primary.

Not an auspicious start for Joe Lhota.

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