Uh Oh: Weiner Drops to Fourth Place in New Poll

And the hits just keep on coming. Unsurprisingly, now that New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner finds himself without a campaign manager and (still) broiled in scandal, a new poll shows that the ex-congressman is losing momentum…fast:

New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner has plummeted to fourth place in the running, with opponent Christine Quinn firmly vaulting into the lead, according a new poll.

In a Quinnipiac University survey released Monday, 53 percent of likely Democratic Primary voters polled said the former congressman should drop out, and only 40 percent saying he should remain in the race.

Quinn, who is the City Council Speaker, now holds 27 percent of the Democratic vote, breaking away from the pack of likely candidates. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has his hands on second place for the first time with 21 percent of the vote though he is in a statistical tie with former Comptroller William Thompson who has 20 percent of the vote. Weiner has a mere 16 percent, a far cry from the 25 percent he held in first place back in June. Only Comptroller John Liu (6 percent) and former council member Sal Albanese (2 percent) fall behind of him.

An NBC 4 New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Thursday signaled Weiner’s plunge in favorability last week, showing similar results to this Quinnipiac survey. In that poll, Weiner was in second place with 16 percent of the vote and Quinn was in the lead with 25 percent.

It’s hard to imagine Weiner recovers after last week’s “creepy” press conference and more allegations likely to come out. We’ve got six weeks to go, people. (It also doesn’t help that sitting members of Congress are publicly questioning his mental health). But what really hurts him, I think, is that he carried on “sexting” women even after he was forced to resign from Congress. The man is married, of course, and one would think after such a public humiliation the first time around he’d be ready to change his ways -- especially if he knew he was going to run for public office again this soon. Nope. Weiner is a guy who seems hell-bent on gaining and retaining power; that’s all that matters to him. Incidentally, I’m amazed not that 53 percent of likely Democratic primary voters think he should take a hike, but that 40 percent think he should actually stay in the race. Good grief. Do these voters really believe -- given his serial lying and opportunism -- the man is fit to be mayor of the most populated city in America? I’ll venture to say that maybe they don’t. But if they do, what would an ambitious pol actually have to do in his personal life to be utterly discredited and disqualified from serving in the public sphere?