Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Ferrer's Dead in the Water
Democratic mayoral candidate Freddie Ferrer has collapsed in the latest Marist poll, falling behind Mayor Moneybags by 13 points, a 20 point shift from last month when he lead Bloomberg by 9 points.
Link
The Marist poll also shows huge gains for Bloomberg against all of his Democratic rivals for mayor in the past 30 days. Since I can't think of anything Bloomberg did in March/April to cause such a huge shift, I can only conclude that the Diallo debacle has killed Ferrer, the only Democratic candidate with any real name recognition. With Ferrer dead in the water, people are telling pollsters they're supporting Moneybags because they don't know anything about the other candidates and don't want to commit to an unknown quantity.
I am trying to stay positive over this poll and I hope Ferrer's early demise gives either Gifford Miller or Anthony Weiner the opportunity to move up in the polls. But if Bloomberg is garnering solid 51% support in April, it will be difficult to beat him in November, particularly after he unleashes $ 75 million dollars in ads. Perhaps if the national Democratic Party throws in millions of extra dollars to defeat Bloomberg, a Dem can compete against Moneybags. But if the polls start to give Bloomberg a consistent double digit lead against the Dems, campaign money is going to dry up pretty quickly. And there is no way a cash-poor Democrat can compete with Mayor Moneybags.
The other hope, of course, is that the Marist poll is an outlier ( a statistical deviation), a distinct possibility since the Marist results are so different from other recent polls.
The one certainty in all of this is that Ferrer is done and the onus is on the other Dems to pull away from the pack soon or Moneybags will be sauntering to re-election.
Link
The Marist poll also shows huge gains for Bloomberg against all of his Democratic rivals for mayor in the past 30 days. Since I can't think of anything Bloomberg did in March/April to cause such a huge shift, I can only conclude that the Diallo debacle has killed Ferrer, the only Democratic candidate with any real name recognition. With Ferrer dead in the water, people are telling pollsters they're supporting Moneybags because they don't know anything about the other candidates and don't want to commit to an unknown quantity.
I am trying to stay positive over this poll and I hope Ferrer's early demise gives either Gifford Miller or Anthony Weiner the opportunity to move up in the polls. But if Bloomberg is garnering solid 51% support in April, it will be difficult to beat him in November, particularly after he unleashes $ 75 million dollars in ads. Perhaps if the national Democratic Party throws in millions of extra dollars to defeat Bloomberg, a Dem can compete against Moneybags. But if the polls start to give Bloomberg a consistent double digit lead against the Dems, campaign money is going to dry up pretty quickly. And there is no way a cash-poor Democrat can compete with Mayor Moneybags.
The other hope, of course, is that the Marist poll is an outlier ( a statistical deviation), a distinct possibility since the Marist results are so different from other recent polls.
The one certainty in all of this is that Ferrer is done and the onus is on the other Dems to pull away from the pack soon or Moneybags will be sauntering to re-election.
