Metro

De Blasio leads Lhota 71-21 percent in new poll

Democrat Bill de Blasio is headed towards a landslide romp in the mayor’s race and he now leads Republican rival Joe Lhota by a wide 71-21 percent, according to a poll released Thursday.

The Quinnipiac University poll also found that, with five weeks to go until the election, 33 percent of voters don’t know enough after Lhota to form an opinion.

“These numbers say Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s kids can start arguing over who gets the best bedroom in Gracie Mansion,” said pollster Maurice Carroll.

“The flurry of negative headlines about name changes, the Sandanista visit, the Cuban honeymoon don’t seem to have any effect.

“It’s a new city demographically and de Blasio captures it. His primary-election coalition, with huge support among black and Hispanic voters, holds in this poll taken after primary-day opinions had time to settle in,” Carroll added.

Surprisingly, voters didn’t see much difference when it comes to their wallets between the progressive Democrat who’s promised to raise taxes on the rich and the fiscally conservative Republican who’s vowed to hold the line on taxes for all residents and reduce city spending..

If de Blasio is elected, taxes would go up, 35 percent said, while 7 percent said taxes would go down and 46 percent said they won’t change.

If Lhota is elected, 37 percent said taxes would go up, while 4 percent said they would go down and 43 percent concluded they would stay the same.

“There’s a note of realism, or cynicism, when voters contemplate taxes. Voters think they’ll either go up or stay the same whoever is elected,” Carroll said.

When it came to the NYPD, 62 percent of voters said they want the next police commissioner to come from the ranks of the department, while 24 percent wanted a “fresh face” from outside.

The poll was conducted Sept. 25 – Oct. 1 of 1,198 likely voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points.