NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATES

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NYC Democratic nominee Bill de Blasio reportedly begins the upcoming election with a 41-point lead in the mayor's race, according to the latest political polling figures.

The poll shows de Blasio leading GOP nominee Joe Lhota 66-25. Independence Party candidate

City Island resident Adolfo Carrion, a former Obama administration official and former Democratic Bronx borough president, is at a how low can you go 2 percent.

De Blasio is NYC's public advocate and he enjoys a massive lead among black and Hispanic voters He leads by double digits among political independents, 53-36.

Lhota, a former chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority may be hard-pressed to pull a comeback. While de Blasio is better-known, more voters have an unfavorable view of Lhota (35 percent) than of de Blasio (21 percent). More than six in 10 likely New York voters have a favorable impression of de Blasio, while just three in 10 say the same of Lhota.

Considering NYC liberal bent, it is not surprising that s Democrat is leading, but Bill de Blasio could be elected the first Democratic mayor in two decades.

The Sept. 19 New York City poll of likely voters found big racial gap in de Blasio blowout in New York City; Democrat ties Lhota on taxes and leads every other measure, According to the Quinnipiac University figures.

This poll is based on a random sample of adults, 18 years of age and older. A random sample is one in which everyone in the population has an equal chance of being selected.

They typically report the poll results based on registered voters (self identified), rather than all adults, because our polls focus on politics and elections. As we get closer to an election, they will report the results based on likely voters.

They use screen questions to determine likely voters. We use different screen questions depending on the election (ie. primary vs general election, presidential vs. off-year election, etc.). In past elections, they have used questions measuring intention to vote, attention to the campaign, past voting behavior, and interest in politics to identify who is likely vote.

Only adults are interviewed because they use the demographic information for weighting purposes. Weighting is a statistical adjustment of the data. Gender, age, education, race, and region are the demographics that are weighted to reflect census information.

They use random digit dial (RDD) sampling. In RDD sampling, phone numbers are randomly generated by a computer. RDD is used to ensure that both listed and unlisted phone numbers have a chance of being included in the sample. Quinnipiac purchases samples from Survey Sampling in Shelton, Conn.

Typically, the field period for interviewing is four to seven days. The university pollsters call from 6 to 9 p.m. Sunday through Friday and 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday. Additional hours are added to weekend calling during busier polling times.

If there is a no answer, they will "call back" that number. They will call every number where there is a no answer at least three times. They also call cell phones. This is important to do because more than a quarter of the nation is cell only and young people are much more likely than older people to be cell only.

They do interview in Spanish, if a respondent prefers to be interviewed in Spanish.

They also use live callers, not prerecorded voices. Our interviewer staff is a mix of students and non-students who are professionally trained and closely monitored.

They have 150 Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) stations. Our CATI software is WebCATI from CfMC (Computers for Marketing Corporation).

The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute conducts timely and accurate public opinion polls on politics and public policy in Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and nationally as a public service and for academic research.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/