Weiner climbs in polls in NYC mayoral race

(CNN) — Anthony Weiner’s making gains in his bid for New York City mayor this year, according to a new poll conducted after the former congressman announced his candidacy last week.

And a Marist poll released Tuesday also indicates that a majority of New York City voters say Weiner deserves a second chance. Weiner was in his seventh term in Congress, representing parts of the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn, when he resigned from the House of Representatives in 2011 amid scandal over lewd photos sent via Twitter.

According to the poll, 19% of registered Democrats say they’d back Weiner in their party’s September mayoral primary. Twenty-four percent say support City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has long been the Democratic front-runner in the race, and if she’s elected in the November general election, she’d become Gotham’s first female and first openly gay mayor.

But the survey suggests the race is tightening. Marist’s April poll had Quinn at 26% and Weiner at 15%. Quinn’s 11 percentage point lead in April is now down to a five point edge.

According to the new survey, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Balsio’s at 12% and former City Comptroller Bill Thompson stands at 11%, with everyone else in single digits and nearly a quarter of Democratic voters undecided.

If none of the candidates grabs 40% of the vote in the Democratic primary, there will be a runoff between the top two vote getters.

“The Democratic primary for mayor remains wide open,” says Dr. Lee M. Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “It is likely to come down to who can punch their ticket for the runoff.”

Does Weiner deserve a second chance?

Fifty-three percent of all registered voters in New York City say yes, with nearly four in ten saying he doesn’t have the character to be mayor. Among Democrats, nearly six in ten say he deserves a second chance. But Democratic voters are evenly split at 44% when asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Weiner. He stood at 45%-41% favorable/unfavorable among Democrats in April.

Weiner talked about the controversy that sidetracked his political career in a video that went up online last week where he announced his mayoral candidacy.

“Look, I made some big mistakes, and I know I let a lot of people down. But I’ve also learned some tough lessons. I’m running for mayor because I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance to work for you,” said Weiner in the video.

The winner of November’s general election will succeed three term Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent.

The Marist poll was conducted Wednesday through Friday (following Weiner’s early Wednesday morning announcement), with 810 registered voters in New York City, including 492 Democrats, questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is 3.4 percentage points for registered voters and 4.4 percentage points for Democrats.