The New York assemblyman accused of asking young female staffers to massage him, touch his cancerous tumors and join him in hotel rooms said Saturday he will resign Monday rather than when the legislative session ends June 20 as he faces possible expulsion amid sexual harassment allegations.

The announcement by Brooklyn Democrat Vito Lopez, 72, a once powerful Brooklyn Democratic leader, came as a surprise after he defied demands by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, leader of the Democratic party, to resign immediately.

On Friday, Lopez said he would resign at the end of the legislative session on June 20 to fully pursue his candidacy for the New York City Council.

A day later, Lopez announced his resignation from the seat he's held since 1984 in a single terse sentence, saying, "I hereby resign the public office of Member of the Assembly from the 53rd Assembly District, Kings County, effective 9 a.m. Monday, May 20, 2013."

Silver announced Lopez's reversal. The powerful speaker had planned Monday to begin a rare and uncertain effort to expel a sitting lawmaker. Expelling Lopez could have proved difficult — he's not charged with any crime and was overwhelmingly re-elected in November, when the scandal was already widely known.

But Lopez and Silver have been under increased pressure since last week, when reports from Special Prosecutor Daniel Donovan and the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics detailed allegations involving four female staffers. The allegations including Lopez forcing his hand up a woman's leg, trying to coerce them to share hotel rooms with him, touching the tumors on his neck and requiring them to write flattering and flirtatious memos to him that he later tried to use to discredit their accusations.

The allegations involving two women came last summer, when the scandal first became public. That's when Silver and top Assembly staffers, along with reviews by top staffers for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, authorized a secret $103,000 settlement for Lopez's first accusers.

Political science Professor Doug Muzzio of Baruch College called the resignation "partial deodorizing" of scandal-plagued Albany.

"Albany needs more extensive and permanent disinfectant," he said Saturday.

"It's a good thing for the state, the Assembly and the people of Brooklyn that he resigned," said Richard Brodsky of the Wagner School of New York University, who also served with Lopez and Silver in the Assembly.

"In the heat of the moment, it is also important to recognize that there ought to be limitations on a legislative body removing merely the unpleasant or the disgusting from membership," Brodsky said, noting the expulsion effort wasn't a sure thing. "The law at stake here is the right of the people to be represented. On balance, in this case, this resignation is important and necessary."

He noted the case after World War I when the Assembly refused to seat three socialists elected to office.

"Today we look at that as it was, the Red Scare," said Jack McEneny, a former Democratic assemblyman who acted as a historian for the chamber who agrees there was a legal question to expelling Lopez. "Today, in our minds, that's not appropriate for a democracy."

Lopez has denied sexually harassing anyone. He noted the two investigations found he committed no crime and that only the voters should decide if he leaves office. His attorney didn't respond to a request for comment Saturday.

"My reaction is, 'So what?'" said Bill Samuels, founder of the good-government group The New Roosevelts. He notes Lopez's resignation simply ends one scandal rocking Albany. The Capitol is beset by federal investigations into corruption and bribery involving at least five lawmakers, one of whom wore an FBI wire to try to ensnare fellow legislators. More than 30 state officials have lost their jobs to corruption and related incidents over seven years.

"The real question is, will Cuomo, Silver and (Senate Republican leader Dean) Skelos do anything meaningful to change this culture?" Samuels said.

Cuomo has proposed ethics legislation, his second package since he and the Legislature passed a 2011 ethics reform act after campaigning in 2010 to "clean up Albany," a platform similar to ones routinely used in Albany campaigns for decades.

"Today's immediate resignation is the best end to this ugly chapter," said Cuomo spokeswoman Melissa DeRosa. "Now we must do everything we can to ensure this type of behavior is never tolerated or allowed to occur again."

Silver had no immediate comment on Lopez's resignation.

In last week's report the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics also found "a substantial basis to conclude" Lopez violated civil provisions of state Public Officer's Law. It also said Lopez violated the public trust by forcing employees to acquiesce to his demands and receive privileges and plum assignments, or be threatened with job loss or demotion.

President Barack Obama is delivering a statement on the growing IRS scandal.

Republican New York City mayoral candidate Joe Lhota is apologizing for saying that Port Authority police officers are "mall cops."

Lhota made the remark at a Pace University candidate forum on women's issues Tuesday night, in response to a question about sex trafficking through John F. Kennedy Airport, which is run by the Port Authority. The PAPD lost 37 members in the 9/11 attacks.

"I don't think the Port Authority does a good enough job in anything that they do, quite honestly, but particularly in the area of security," Lhota said. "Those cops get paid more than NYPD cops and quite honestly -- and I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying this -- they're nothing more than mall cops."

Lhota, a former Giuliani administration official and MTA chairman, said in a statement Wednesday that he was sorry for the "insensitive" remark.

"I regret my unfortunate characterization of the Port Authority Police Department. It was an inappropriate answer that does not accurately reflect the hard work of its officers."

The Port Authority called Lhota's comments "dead wrong" and "offensive," saying they suggested a lack of understanding for what its officers face each day on the job.

"The 37 PAPD officers who died in the line of duty on September 11 were not 'mall cops,' nor are the many other heroic men and women of the PAPD who risk their lives every day while protecting some of the region's most valuable assets and the millions of people who use them," Port Authority Chief Security Officer Joseph Dunne said in a statement. 

Patrick Lynch, the president of the NYPD's union, Police Benevolent Association, added in a statement, "New York City police officers have worked side by side with Port Authority police officers for many years and we have found them to be well-trained and highly experienced professional police officers." 

"On 9/11 we searched together for 23 NYPD officers and 37 PAPD officers who sacrificed their own lives while evacuating others to safety," he said. "If that doesn't speak to professional policing, then I don't know what does." 

Republican rival John Catsimatidis said in a statement that it was "sad" what Lhota said.

"As mayor, I would support law enforcement, not knock it down," Catsimatidis said.

-Andrew Siff contributed to this report

Mark Zuckerberg has clicked "Like" on the Keystone XL Pipeline — and now his timeline is going to be chock-full of angry.

The Facebook founder and CEO recently started a political advocacy group called FWD.us — and the group is running a series of television ads in support of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

His PAC was created to support immigration reform, but it is also going to support such things as drilling. There are those in Congress who support immigration reform, but who also support drilling, and some say that the PAC funding might be a means to an end.

Feared and loathed by environmentalists, the pipeline would open up Canadian tar sands for oil and gas exploration.

Activists in the San Francisco Bay Area say they are "angered and mystified" over Zuck's turn for the pipe, and a group of about 50 protested Wednesday at Facebook's world headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The protest was timed just before the company released its first-quarter earnings. . Wednesday is also "May Day," a day where many took up immigrants' rights and a path to citizenship as the key causes of the day.

The protesters questioned why Zuckerberg would "spend millions in support" of the pipeline, "among the dirtiest projects on Earth."

And they created an online petition to stop "running ads supporting fossil fuels" which as of Wednesday afternoon had collected more than 18,000 signatures.

Zuckerberg did not come outside the building when the protect occurred about noon, nor did he issue any statement on his Facebook news website.

Supporters, however, point out that that building the pipeline means thousands of jobs.

FWD.us's ads feature Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) bashing President Barack Obama for not being supportive-enough of the pipe.

Credo Mobile, the socially-active mobile carrier, says that Facebook has refused to run its ads that blast the pipeline and FWD.us's support for it.

Even though experts say Zuckerberg's primary directive in effecting change in social policy is immigration reform, some are not going to agree with using the pipeline ads as "cover" for that change.

"But invariably there is going to be people who don’t understand and the inevitable result is going to be this type of press fire," Dan Schnur, a political science professor at the University of Southern California, told the Los Angeles Times.

Ironically, the Zuckerberg critics have a Facebook page dedicated to their cause.

An upstate New York man who was arrested after allegedly phoning death threats against Rep. Carolyn Maloney to her Manhattan office last month says he never threatened to kill the congresswoman. 

Ronald Buchanan of Elmira admits calling Maloney's office multiple times at around noontime on April 2. But he told WETM-TV, "Never at any time did I threaten the congresswoman or anyone on her staff." 

According to the criminal complaint, Buchanan called Maloney's office to complain about her new gun bill, which would require weapon owners to hold liability insurance or else face a $10,000 fine. Buchanan allegedly told the intern who answered his call that Maloney "needs to stay away from my Second Amendment right." 

In a profanity-laced tirade, he went on to say he "hated" Maloney and that he hoped she would "die from cancer," according to the complaint. He added, "I want that b---- dead." 

Minutes later, in another call to the office, Buchanan allegedly said he would kill the congresswoman if he saw her.

"I don't care if I have to go to every single speech she makes and heckle her," he allegedly said. "I shouldn't have to pay insurance. As a conservative, I will make sure she stays out of our Second Amendment rights." 

Staffers at the office contacted police, who traced the calls to Buchanan and arrested him. According to the complaint, he admitted: "I made calls to her. I did not mean them as threats... I made some phone calls from my cell phone and other calls from my home phone." 

Buchanan spent a week in jail in New York City before he was freed. He said he had to put up his home to make bail.

"I find myself in a fight for my freedom, from just allegations," he told WETM-TV. "No voice recordings, nothing." 

He said he never raised his voice and that he was "pretty polite about it."

"I merely articulated my views in that first call about her encroaching on our rights," he said. "My second phone call was stating to them that I was putting her phone number on social media. After I did that, they were inundated with phone calls." 

Buchanan believes Maloney's office called police out of "retaliation for doing that." 

"They were making an example of me," he said. "If you stand up to a congresswoman, this is what will happen to you." 

Buchanan maintains his innocence of the harassment and menacing charges and said he plans on suing the city, claiming he  "lost income, was handcuffed, put into the national media, embarrassed." 

His next court date is scheduled for May 23 in New York City. He said he will ask for a change of venue. 

Maloney declined to comment on Buchanan's statements Wednesday. She has said she's moving forward with the firearm insurance legislation, despite the alleged threats. 

Former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner appeared to take a closer step toward a mayoral bid on Wednesday, hinting in an apology-laden interview with NBC 4 New York that there could be more revelations about his 2011 sexting scandal and expressing hope that New Yorkers would “give me a second chance.”

Weiner seemed to be preparing the public for the possibility of more allegations about his online relationships with women, which first came to light in the spring of 2011 when he accidentally tweeted a photo of his underpants.

He said Wednesday he had already come clean about what he'd done, but left open the possibility that women who haven't yet come forward to talk about their online relationships with him could decide to speak publicly about it any time.

“Some things may come out that are true,” Weiner said. “Some things are not."

He did not elaborate on what those things might be.

"But here’s what I try to do to draw the line," he continued. "Basically, New Yorkers know the story. I did it. I did it with multiple people. These things were wrong and inappropriate, and I never should have been dishonest about it. They played out in the most public and embarrassing way possible. And that’s it."

Weiner, 47, resigned from his Brooklyn congressional seat in June 2011 after using Twitter to send provocative photos of himself to women. When the exchanges became public, he claimed he’d been hacked. He eventually confessed and went into virtual hiding with his wife, Huma Abedin, a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton. At the time, Abedin was pregnant with their first child.

"That’s what people need to know, and that’s where I stand, and I own that completely," Weiner said. "And it’s something that I’m going to work with for a long time.”

His comments to NBC 4 New York came in the first of three interviews with local media outlets on Wednesday, an effort that can be viewed as another way of inching toward joining the crowded field of Democratic primary candidates.

An NBC New York/Marist College poll this month found that if Weiner jumped into the race, he would get 15 percent of Democratic votes, vaulting him straight into second place behind City Council Speaker Christine Quinn but still far from what he’d need to avoid a runoff.

As a congressman, Weiner was known for his fiery personality, and one particularly passionate speech on the House floor during a debate on a bill that would expand health benefits for the victims of 9/11. Recalling that moment on Wednesday, Weiner said that while he’d stepped away from public life for two years, he hadn’t lost that gusto.

“Anger like that, passion like that, I hope that if I get a chance to come back I won’t lose that,” he said.

Asked when he was going to announce whether he would run, Weiner replied, “It’s a matter of days —maybe weeks —but not more.”

Weiner said that in 2011 he’d ignored supporters’ pleas not to resign because his top priority was, and remains, to repair his marriage.

He and Abedin have a 15-month old son. She has forgiven him, Weiner said, but he added that they still talk about it and he’ll probably be apologizing to her “for the rest of my life.”

Weiner said he still had a lot of forgiveness to seek of many other people, including his former constituents and the reporters he lied to. But he also said he hoped that his transgressions would not define his life and career.

“I guess I want to be viewed through the full continuum of what people know about me, no one particular chapter,” he said.

He said he wanted to be remembered for his efforts on health care reform, protecting the Rockaways before Hurricane Sandy hit, trying to curb hunger among New York children, and trying to lower taxes on the middle class.

“These are things that I worked on and I think should be part of people’s judgment,” Weiner said. "I guess all I’m saying is, for the time being, is just take a second look. And give me a second chance.”

Weiner has long desired to be mayor. He ran in 2005, and nearly forced a runoff against Fernando Ferrer, but conceded in the name of party solidarity. He planned to run again in 2009, and was considered a leading contender, but dropped out after Mayor Bloomberg chose to run for a third term.

Prior to his unraveling, Weiner had begun to plan for a 2013 campaign. He still has more than $4 million in his campaign account.

In recent weeks, Weiner has been making slow steps toward another mayoral run. He commissioned an internal poll in March to gauge what voters thought of him. He granted a series of intimate interviews with The New York Times Magazine, which resulted in a cover story that detailed his efforts to repair his marriage and decide whether to pursue his political dream. He released a policy booklet that was similar to one he distributed in anticipation of running in 2009. And he has slowly started giving interviews to the local media.

Weiner has also returned to Twitter, albeit under a new handle, @anthonyweiner, instead of the doomed former handle, @repweiner.

He said he’d watch himself much better this time.

“This isn’t like some kind of addiction or anything,” he said. “It was something I did that was very thoughtless and very dumb. I’m not thoughtless about it anymore, believe me.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is enjoying a formidable base of support 18 months before Election Day, with nearly half of respondents to a new poll saying they would vote to re-elect him.

That backing is increasingly coming from Democrat-heavy New York City and the suburbs, while enthusiasm has ebbed upstate, a largely Republican area where the Democratic governor once held wider bipartisan appeal, the NBC New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll shows.

That shift likely is the result of Cuomo's embrace of more left-leaning positions on gun control, same-sex marriage, and women's equality, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion.

Republicans who once applauded his tough budgetary stances on taxes and state spending seem now to be turning against him.

"What's sharpened in the last six months is that Gov. Cuomo was once reaching out across regional and party lines and really pitching a shutout and now it's more of a traditional upstate/downstate, Democratic/Republican difference," Miringoff said.

Cuomo "is still popular, but it's now less so across the board."

The poll surveyed 956 registered voters statewide from April 16 to April 18, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The results follow a similar shift revealed in a NBC New York/Wall Street Journal/Marist College poll last month, which found more voters calling Cuomo a liberal and fewer calling him a moderate.

Asked what they'd do if the election were held today, 47 percent of registered voters responded that they'd cast ballots for Cuomo, according to the poll. A quarter said they'd vote against him, with 13 percent unsure and 15 percent saying it would depend on who his opponent was.

No Republican has announced plans to run against Cuomo.

The numbers are much higher among Democrats, 62 percent of whom said they would vote for Cuomo, and in New York City, where 57 percent said they'd vote for him. By contrast, 39 percent of upstate residents and 30 percent of Republicans said they'd vote for him.

That was the first time Marist asked that question, so there is no earlier numbers to compare. But answers to other questions could help explain what's happening.

For instance: while 54 percent of voters approve of Cuomo's job performance, 37 percent of Republicans do, down from 46 percent in March. A similar trend exists with the governor's favorability rating -- whether they have a positive opinion about him as a person. Cuomo's statewide favorability remains essentially unchanged at 65 percent, but among Republicans that number plummets to 46 percent, down from 60 percent in March.

Another encouraging set of numbers for Cuomo: nearly three-quarters of voters say that New York's economic difficulties aren't Cuomo's fault. The governor took office in 2011, after the country's recession. Among Republicans, 72 percent say he isn't to blame.

A small group of Democratic New York senators who share majority control of the Senate with Republicans has kicked out one of its members who was charged in a federal corruption case.

Sen. Malcolm Smith's ban from the Independent Democratic Conference comes as a new poll shows state residents increasingly consider corruption a "very serious" problem in Albany and say Gov. Andrew Cuomo isn't handling it well.

IDC leader Jeff Klein said Wednesday that he stripped Smith of his leadership post after he was arrested two weeks ago. He said he also stopped the last check for most of Smith's annual leadership stipend, and then the IDC dropped Smith, of Queens, from the conference, which shares Senate control with the GOP. The sanctions came without speaking to Smith, who hasn't been convicted of a crime.

"Everyone deserves their day in court, but I think it was up to me as leader of the Independent Democratic Conference to act decisively and quickly," Klein said. "I have watched corruption and convictions and arrests over my career, unfortunately, in the Legislature and I didn't bode well for our democratic process. ... This was my opportunity to act as a leader and I think I did the right thing."

Smith declined to comment. He had been one of the Democrats' majority leaders during a brief and tumultuous term from 2008 to 2010 that prompted four Democrats to form the IDC. Smith is now without a Senate conference.

He posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday: "God know the heart."

Smith, who is black, joined the four-member IDC in December amid concerns about the lack of racial diversity in the conference that rules the Senate with Republicans. Before Smith joined, the IDC had three white men and a white woman, while the Republican conference was all white. The traditional Democratic conference has more than a dozen black and Latino senators.

Klein, Cuomo and the traditional Democratic conference in the Senate are pushing several proposals to address the federal corruption charges against Smith announced two weeks ago. They involve accusations of bribery surrounding elections and campaign financing.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday finds 48 percent of New Yorkers see corruption as "very serious," the highest share since the poll began asking the question in 2003.

New Yorkers said Cuomo is responsible for cleaning up Albany, as he pledged in his 2010 campaign, but 52 percent said he was doing a "not so good" or "poor" job.

Cuomo's spokesman wouldn't comment.

The poll also found 75 percent of those surveyed gave the Legislature the same low grade.

"The people are fed up," said Maurice "Mickey" Carroll of the Quinnipiac poll. "They don't like the pictures of their lawmakers in handcuffs, and they think it's the governor's job to clean up."

Yet, "They do feel Albany is about the same as everywhere else ... but the fact is, it's not the same everywhere else."

The poll questioned 1,404 voters from April 9-14. It has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.

A letter addressed to a U.S. senator from Mississippi tested positive for the dangerous poison ricin, the FBI said Tuesday.

U.S. Capitol Police, which is partnering with the FBI in this investigation, said an envelope containing a white granular substance was intercepted about 11 a.m. Tuesday.

The FBI Field Office in Baltimore said the first test in the field was preliminary. The letter must now be sent for further testing.

 The letter was addressed to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. It was intercepted at the Landover, Md., mail facility and did not reach the Capitol.

Wicker's office has informed the senator's close associates of the tainted letters, a source close to Wicker tells NBC News. The office also is telling associates that no one at the post office was exposed to the substance.

"This matter is part of an ongoing investigation by the United States Capitol Police and FBI," said a statement issued by Wicker. "I want to thank our law enforcement officials for their hard work and diligence in keeping those of us who work in the Capitol complex safe."

The letter's appearance "wouldn't raise suspicion," the Senate sergeant at arms said. It was postmarked Memphis, Tenn.

Mail to Senate offices is suspended likely until the end of the week, according to Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Angus King, I-Maine. House leadership said there has been no change in their mail service.

"It was caught at the screening facility,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. “That's why we have the offsite screening facility for mail. And the tests came back positive. And they are shutting down the post offices temporarily to make sure they get everything squared away and we are notifying our state offices what to look for."

McCaskill suggested that officials identified a person of interest.

"Evidently this person, the person that is a suspect, writes to a lot of members," she said.

The off-site screening facility used to review all mail sent to Congress is temporarily shut down while a search is under way for the possibility of any other tainted letters. They are reviewing mail postmarked Memphis.

Ricin is far less dangerous than the anthrax that was found in letters sent in 2001, officials said.

Disgraced former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner could mount a serious Democratic primary challenge against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, whose lead in the mayoral race is slipping, a new NBC New York/Marist College poll shows.

Weiner, who resigned after a 2011 sexting scandal but has been edging back into politics, could throw the Democratic primary into disarray, siphoning votes not only from Quinn but from other contenders, including Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson, the poll reveals.

The poll of registered voters taken last Thursday through Monday offers the first glimpse at what the race would look like with Weiner. The survey shows that if he entered the race now, he’d start out in second place, with 15 percent of the vote among Democratic respondents.

See the full poll here.

That’s short of front-runner Quinn’s 26 percent, and nowhere near the 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. And there are still many voters who are wary of his return, including 50 percent of Democrats who said they wouldn’t consider voting for him.

People like 70-year-old Mary Reynolds, who lives in Weiner's former Brooklyn congressional district and took part in the poll.

"Oh, Anthony Weiner, he annoys the devil out of me," Reynolds told NBC 4 New York in a follow-up interview. "He's a spineless person. I would not vote for him at all. I speak with my neighbors, and they say, "What is he, a joke?'"

Watch: Analyzing the poll

Still, some findings in the poll could be seen as encouraging for Weiner, who aspired to be mayor for many years before his career hit the rocks. He has only recently gone public with his story and begun attempts to repair his image.

In that context, he can already tout results.

His favorability rating jumped from 34 percent to 45 percent since Marist last asked voters about him two months ago. The number of voters with an unfavorable impression of him hasn’t changed much; it stands at 41 percent.

"These are not great numbers, but from his perspective, he’s trending more positive,” said Lee Miringoff, director of Marist Institute for Public Opinion. “He’s obviously polarizing, with a high negative rating. But when he gets into a field that’s not well formed, he does fall into second place and becomes a player in this.”

Weiner declined to comment.

The poll surveyed 873 registered voters, 556 of whom were Democrats. Results for the Democratic respondents had a plus or minus 4 percentage point margin of error. Results for the entire group of registered voters had a plus or minus 3 percent point margin of error.

Quinn has suffered from being the front-runner, and the target of most negative campaigning, Miringoff said. The City Council speaker polled at 37 percent in February, several points higher than she stands now, with or without Weiner. Her favorability is also down among Democrats since February, from 65 percent to 59 percent.

According to the poll, if Weiner entered the Democratic primary today, his 15 percent would put him behind Quinn’s 26 percent but ahead of City Comptroller John Liu (12 percent), de Blasio (11 percent), Thompson (11 percent) and former City Councilman Sal Albanese (2 percent).

By comparison, without Weiner, Quinn would receive 30 percent of Democratic votes and de Blasio would be second with 15 percent, followed by Thompson (14 percent), Liu (11 percent) and Albanese (2 percent).

In short, with Weiner in the race, Quinn, de Blasio and Thompson all suffer.

"He’d make it much more difficult for anyone to reach 40 percent to avoid a runoff," Miringoff said.

Those numbers illustrate the fluidity of the Democratic primary, in which 22 percent of voters remain undecided, the poll shows. And even among those who have a preference, only about a third say they’re firmly committed.

"This is a race with no incumbent," Miringoff said. "It’s understandable that voters are going to be shopping around. And Weiner doesn’t clarify that."

The undecided include Arthur Raphael, 52, of Brooklyn.

Raphael, who participated in the poll, said in an interview that he was a supporter of Weiner's when he was in Congress, and thought that the sexting scandal was blown out of proportion. He said he wanted Weiner in the mayoral race, if only as an option.

"He deserves to be given a voice and to be in the race and to be heard and to be a part of the debates," Raphael said. "I"m not saying I'm voting for him, but I believe he's earnest and possibly not corrupt."

Pollsters asked general election voters about two hypothetical November matchups against likely Republican nominee Joe Lhota. If Quinn was the Democratic nominee, she’d beat Lhota 59 percent to 19 percent. If Weiner were the nominee, he’d beat Lhota 51 percent to 28 percent. In both scenarios, 21 percent said they were undecided.

Weiner, 47, resigned from his Brooklyn congressional seat in June 2011 after using Twitter to send provocative photos of himself to women and when the exchanges became public, he claimed he’d been hacked. He eventually confessed and went into virtual hiding with his wife, Huma Abedin, a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton. At the time, Abedin was pregnant with their first child.

Weiner first ran for mayor in 2005, and nearly forced a runoff against Fernando Ferrer, but conceded in the name of party solidarity. He planned to run again in 2009, and was considered a leading contender, but dropped out after Mayor Bloomberg chose to run for a third term. Prior to his unraveling, Weiner had begun to plan for a 2013 campaign. He still has more than $4 million in his campaign account.

In recent weeks, Weiner has been making slow steps toward another mayoral run. He commissioned an internal poll in March to gauge what voters thought of him. He granted a series of intimate interviews with The New York Times Magazine, which resulted in a cover story that detailed his efforts to repair his marriage and decide whether to pursue his political dream. He released a policy booklet  that was similar to one he distributed in anticipation of running in 2009. And he sat down with NY1 for an interview, broadcast Monday, in which he talked policy, apologized for his past behavior and said he was nearing a decision on the 2013 race.

One advantage that Weiner enjoys is name recognition: for good or ill, a lot of New Yorkers know who he is.

Democrats seem to be warming to the idea of a Weiner candidacy. In an October poll, only 28 percent wanted him to run, and 57 percent did not. Now, 40 percent want him to run, and 46 percent do not, the poll found.

But Democrats are divided on whether Weiner has changed as a person. Thirty-seven percent think he has, and 32 percent disagree. The remaining 31 percent aren’t sure.

"Weiner can look at that and say, ‘A third are on my side right now,'" Miringoff said. But the numbers also show that if he chooses to run, "he’s clearly going to have to prove himself."

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