Final NYC Mayoral Polls: Can De Blasio Seal the Deal?

Election night is almost here! It’s been quite a race over the past year and there have been many twist and turns along the way. The conventional wisdom is that it’s de Blasio’s race to lose and that we may not even need a runoff. We can we expect come tomorrow night?

The two polls that have come out over the past 24 hours, from Quinnipiac and PPP, show de Blasio just under the 40% he needs to avoid the runoff. Compare these results to the 43% he got in last week’s Quinnipiac poll and we may have evidence that de Blasio’s support has peaked, or at least plateaued.  Now that doesn’t mean he’s in any danger for tomorrow, but it does indicate that this race isn’t over just yet.

The other important thing to watch tomorrow is the race between Quinn and Thompson for the number two spot, which is a ticket into the runoff as long as de Blasio doesn’t reach 40%. Polls have consistently shown Thompson steadily building up a lead over the past few weeks and Quinn has struggled to thrive during this entire election.

So with the campaign essentially over and the polling completed, here are my final predictions:

de Blasio 37%

Thompson 23%

Quinn   17%

Liu 6%

Weiner  5%

It’s obvious that de Blasio peaked a week ago and I don’t see him regaining much momentum in the next 24 hours. Still, there is no doubt that he’s going to get the most votes tomorrow. And while I would normally have Thompson doing better then expected, like his surprise performance in 2009, this time around there are a lot of choices for Democrats dissatisfied with Bloomberg. Quinn has had the wind knocked out of her sails (if she had any wind to begin with) by the rise of de Blasio and I would be shocked to see her reach 20%. Finally, I predict Weiner will under perform even the lowest of expectations and will get beaten by Chris Liu for the number 4 spot.

Tomorrow I will (hopefully) be covering the election from Bill de Blasio’s headquarters as the results come and the winners (and losers) are declared. It’s going to be an exciting night.