For months it has been clear Mayor Bill de Blasio is holding the upper hand in the mayor's race, but our NY1/Baruch College Poll shows just how steep an uphill battle his challengers face. Our Grace Rauh has the story.
If Mayor de Blasio does not seem to be breaking a sweat about his re-election bid, it's because he is looking at some very positive numbers —which show him with a wide lead over his political rivals.
Our NY1/Baruch College City Poll shows that if the election for City Hall was held when the poll was taken, earlier this month, de Blasio would win handily.
Forty-three percent of registered voters say they would vote for de Blasio, a Democrat. Eleven-point-six percent say they'd cast their ballot for Republican candidate Nicole Malliotakis, an Assemblywoman from Staten Island. Bo Dietl, the fiery former NYPD detective running as an independent, gets six percent. Sal Albanese, a Democrat also running on the Reform Party line, gets close to four.
But there is a sizeable chunk of the electorate still up for grabs.
"I haven't seen a candidate that I really want to vote for," said Brooklyn resident Nicole Thomas. "So I don't know.
Thirty-one percent of city voters say they are not sure who they'd vote for.
"I think most people just don't know anything about this race yet," said Mickey Blum Baruch College Pollster. "They aren't focused on it. They don't know anything about these candidates.
Most of de Blasio's support comes from Democrats, but again, many within de Blasio's own party have not made up their minds.
Fifty-seven percent of Democratic voters support de Blasio. Four percent say they are with Malliotakis.
But twenty-eight percent are undecided.
Among Republican voters, Malliotakis does best.
She gets support from forty percent of GOP voters. The rest is divided among de Blasio, Dietl, and Albanese. Twenty-six percent say they are not sure who to back.
There is some concern that the wide gap between the Mayor and his challengers will mean low voter turnout in November.