Strong Poll Numbers for Mayoral Hopefuls, Thanks in Part to Storm As the jockeying for the 2013 mayoral race gets under way, two likely candidates appear to be gaining some momentum, scoring their highest job-approval marks yet, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. In a survey of New York City voters, 65 percent approved of the job performance of Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, while only 18 percent disapproved. Meanwhile, 49 percent gave the thumbs-up to Bill de Blasio, the public advocate, while 14 percent disapproved. Perhaps more important for Mr. de Blasio, the number of people who had no opinion or did not know about his job performance shrank to 37 percent from 44 percent in June -- a sign that he is gradually becoming better known. Then again, the rosier numbers may not be isolated. Many government officials around the region are seeing a bounce in their poll numbers at least in part because of their strong responses to Hurricane Sandy. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, for instance, posted his strongest approval marks in two years in results released Tuesday by Quinnipiac, and voters overwhelmingly praised his handling of the storm. And in New Jersey, a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll found that Gov. Chris Christie's ratings jumped 18 percentage points -- also a by-product of his handling of the storm. Even John C. Liu, the city comptroller, has gradually rebounded, despite a looming trial against his former campaign treasurer and a federal investigation of his campaign finances. Forty-eight percent of voters approved of his job performance and 22 percent disapproved; almost a year ago, the numbers were evenly split. The same is true with Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, whose approval ratings have inched up since June. One official whose numbers are weak is Joseph J. Lhota, the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who has been discussed as a possible Republican mayoral candidate in the wake of his agency's widely praised work restoring subway service after the storm. On the minus side, Mr. Lhota is also the public face of the authority's looming fare increase. Forty-five percent of voters said that they disapproved of Mr. Lhota's performance, while 38 percent approved. The most popular public official in the city remains Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner. But the department's stop-and-frisk policy still divides residents; the new poll found that 53 percent of respondents disapproved of the practice, the highest since the Quinnipiac poll began asking about it in March. The survey of 1,165 New York City voters was conducted by phone between Nov. 14 and 18 with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.