Former NYC mayor Bill De Blasio hasn't yet said if he'll run for governor of New York, but if he does, he will start with a massive poll deficit working against him.
Gov. Kathy Hochul leads De Blasio 46%-12% among registered voters, according to a new Siena College poll released Tuesday. Some 11% of voters back NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, with 6% supporting Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi and 24% still undecided.
Williams and Suozzi have entered the race, but De Blasio has spent months hinting at his intent without actually committing. Time is running short, with the June 22 primary just five months away.
Hochul leads De Blasio by around 50 points among white and Latino voters, Siena found, offsetting his 10-point lead among Black voters. The governor leads the former mayor by a wide margin among every other subgroup in the survey -- including a 41-point lead among liberal Democrats, De Blasio's traditional stomping ground.
Get Tri-state area news and weather forecasts to your inbox. Sign up for NBC New York newsletters.
De Blasio's net favorability rating was -23, with an unfavorable score among virtually every political, geographic and demographic group polled (but a +14 rating among Black voters). Hochul's net rating was a +16, nearly the highest of any politician or institution in the state.
The winner of the Democratic primary is expected to face Rep. Lee Zeldin, an ardent Trump supporter from Long Island who the state Republican Party has already called its frontrunner. In the Siena poll, some 63% of voters surveyed said they didn't know who Zeldin was or had no opinion of him.
The poll of 806 registered voters was conducted Jan. 9-13 and has a margin of error of 4.0 percentage points.
