Thompson

Sometime deep into the evening of November 3 at the Election Night HQ of William C. Thompson III, NY Governor David Patterson, who had received a tepid applause after he took to the podium, said what needed to be said as a surge swept the Hilton third-floor room that an upset could be in the making as Thompson’s numbers seemed to be growing strongly in the hours after the polls had closed: QMfE, “A lot of Democrats this day stayed home, dropped the ball.” He spoke about an hour before the tenor of the evening, subtle but obvious, began tipping to OMG, he/we might actually defeat the Term Limits billion dollar mayor.

Then, of course, that surge tanked.

Had they – those there, those not there – been comatose because of the Obama embrace? NYT, October 9 headline: An Obama Endorsement, Sort of, for Thompson: It was an unusually lukewarm expression of political support from the White House, delivered in the conditional tense, without using the name of the candidate, and coming from a presidential spokesman, no less.

NY Post headline: Dinkins takes Obama to task for not supporting Thompson:  The city’s first African-American mayor blasted the country’s first black president for leaving Bill Thompson in the dust in the mayor’s race this year. “The president should’ve done more. He found time to go to Virginia, he found time to go to New Jersey and he should’ve been here,” former Mayor David Dinkins, who was in office from 1990 through 1993.

After Bloomberg’s winning strategy – $$$,$$$,$$$ – got him re-elected, the NY Times reported that the City Hall administration had politely but firmly told the White House to stay out of NYC.

New York City – Reminiscent of this past September’s New York Democratic Primary, low voter turnout is expected for today’s Mayoral race. News outlets in New York have been giving more attention to the Governors race in Jersey than the Mayors race in New York. Although Thompson is gaining on the Billionaire Mayor, according to news and polling information, he will need a Hail Mary toss to beat Bloomberg and his double-digit lead.

Bloomberg, who has spent $90 million of his own money, asked voters “to come out and vote” today.

Polling inside Hunter. Sparse turnout this afternoon.

“Slow, an election worker said, responding to this journalist’s query about the turnout this afternoon at the polling place inside Hunter, at 68th and Lexington Avenue. I stood in front of the booths during lunchtime for 20 minutes and counted only five people who stepped in to cast ballots. The September primaries saw some of the lowest voter turnouts in recent history.

With New Yorkers getting bombarded with political ads from Jersey and our own Mayoral race playing second fiddle in the media to Corzine vs. Christie, the outcome of New York’s race could get interesting as the polls close in a few hours.

Momentum Continues to Shift to Thompson
Trails by Three Points: 44 percent to 41 percent

Polling completed last week by Garin Heart Yang Research Group, run by pollster Geoff Garin, showed there has been a significant shift and the race has moved closer toward Bill Thompson.

In a survey of 614 New Yorkers who are likely to vote in Tuesday’s election for mayor, the vote overall is Bloomberg 46 percent , Thompson 38 percent , with 17 percent undecided. Among those who say they are certain to vote (305 in total in the sample), Thompson trails by just three points (Bloomberg 44 percent , Thompson 41 percent ) with 15 percent undecided. The race has tightened in all five boroughs.

“We always said this would be a sprint and we are closing strong. This race will be decided on Election Day. We are prepared to turn our voters out with a robust GOTV operation and elect Bill Thompson Mayor,” stated New Yorkers for Thompson Campaign Manager, Eduardo Castell.

Among the overall sample, the vote is:

Whites: 59 percent to 28 percent for Bloomberg

African Americans: 53 percent to 25 percent for Thompson

Hispanics: 43 percent to 40 percent for Thompson, a big shift from last week, and the first time we have had Thompson leading with Hispanics.

The undecided voters are disproportionately minorities, which favors Thompson. Among undecided voters, 61 percent STRONGLY agree that Bloomberg was wrong to overturn term limits, and 64 percent agree that Bloomberg has had his chance as mayor and that eight years is enough.

In a question that is an important indicator of trends and campaign dynamics, a plurality of voters say what they are hearing lately makes them less favorable to Bloomberg (by 31 percent to 22), including pluralities of whites, soft Bloomberg voters, and undecided voters. Bill Thompson had a negative dynamic on this measure last week, but now he has a slight positive plurality saying they have become more favorable to him, by 28 percent to 22 percent.