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It’s still wide open
Many New Yorkers undecided in latest poll of 2021 mayoral race
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams led the fi eld in a recent Emerson College/PIX11 News poll of the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary
with 18 percent of the respondents’ support. But the same survey found 23 percent of voters were still undecided about the contest.
Photo by Dean Moses
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, M BTR AY 21-27, 2021 15
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
Democrats in heavily-blue New
York City are potentially selecting
the city’s next mayor in a primary
just six weeks away. But the latest
poll on the race suggests that nearly
a quarter of all voters have no idea
who to vote for — and the contest itself
remains wide open.
The Emerson College/PIX11
News poll found that not one of the
13 Democrats running for mayor
had support greater than 20 percent.
An astonishing 23 percent of all
those surveyed said they were undecided
on their choice in the June 22
primary.
Brooklyn Borough President
Eric Adams leads the entire fi eld
with 18 percent, followed by City
Comptroller Scott Stringer and entrepreneur
Andrew Yang — each
of whom polled at 15 percent. That
marks a stunning reversal from a
Siena College/NY1 poll released in
April which found Yang on top with
24 percent of voters, followed by
Adams and Stringer, both of whom
polled at 13 percent. The poll had 26
percent of voters either undecided
or unaffi liated.
The Emerson/PIX11 poll quizzed
631 Democrats between May 13-15,
two weeks after a former Stringer
intern, Jean Kim, came forward
with allegations that he made unwanted
sexual advances toward her
back in 2001 — something which
the comptroller vehemently denied.
Nevertheless, it cost him the support
of numerous high-profi le progressives.
If anything, the poll found that
the scandal did little to dent Stringer’s
support among New Yorkers;
his support actually grew from 6
percent in an Emerson/PIX11 poll
conducted in March to 15 percent in
May.
Former city Sanitation Commissioner
Kathryn Garcia checked in
fourth in the primary poll at 8 percent,
while nonprofi t executive Dianne
Morales — who benefi tted from
some progressives who defected
from Stringer — garnered just 6 percent.
Former Housing and Urban
Development Secretary Shaun Donovan
had 5 percent, while former
Citicorp executive Ray McGuire
and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley
each garnered 4 percent.
The Emerson/PIX11 poll also
went deeper in assessing how
the contest — which will be done
through ranked-choice voting for
the fi rst time in the city’s history
— would play out when votes are
counted. Poll participants were
asked to rate their top three choices
in the contest; the pollsters then
simulated how the vote count might
shake out as the votes are counted
in rounds, and the candidate with
the least support eliminated after
each round.
The poll projects that it may take
up to nine rounds of vote counting
before a candidate emerges with the
required 50 percent plus 1 vote majority
of support. At the end of the
Emerson/PIX 11 simulation, Adams
was the last candidate standing,
projected to win the nomination
with 52.6 percent over Yang, who
garnered 47.4 percent.
Regarding the issues most important
to the voters, the Emerson/PIX
11 poll found that homelessness led
the way, with 20 percent of respondents
ranking it as the top priority
for the next mayor. That was followed
by housing (19 percent), jobs
(12 percent), healthcare (11 percent)
and education/schools (10 percent).
Interestingly, police reform — a
major topic in city and national politics
since the George Floyd murder
last May — ranked as the top issue
among only 9 percent of those surveyed.
The poll also found that 53
percent of all respondents had a positive
view of the NYPD, but Emerson/
PIX11 pointed out that “metric
varies largely by race”; a combined
61 percent of white voters and 61 percent
of Latino voters had a positive
view of the NYPD, while 33 percent
of Black voters viewed the department
favorably.
A vast majority of all respondents
also expressed concern over safety
in the city’s subways — which has
led to sparring between the MTA
and Mayor Bill de Blasio amid a
rash of recent crime in the transit
system. Seventy-nine percent
of those surveyed said they were
“very concerned” or “somewhat
concerned” about whether they or
someone they love would become a
victim of crime in the subway system.
The poll, which was conducted
through a cellphone sample of SMSto
web data and an online panel, has
a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.
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