Anthony Weiner finishes second in mayoral race, says Marist NBC poll If the primary election occurred today, Weiner comes in behind City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who earned 26% of the vote while Weiner beat other challengers with 15%. 
 
 Anthony Weiner would come in second the Christine Quinn if primary election took place today. 
 
 Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner has only been back in contention as a possible mayoral candidate for about a week, but he’s already topping most other candidates in a new opinion poll. 
 
 In the first poll since the scandal-scarred former congressman shook up the mayor’s race with his surprise interest in joining it, Weiner came in second behind City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. 
 
 RELATED: ANTHONY WEINER POSTS HIS IDEAS FOR NEW YORK 
 
 “[Weiner’s] numbers make him viable even if he hasn’t established a credible candidacy yet,” said pollster Lee Miringoff. 
 
 The Marist College/NBC New York poll found that Quinn was the top pick of 26% of registered Democrats, while Weiner had the support of 15% of Dems. 
 
 RELATED: ANTHONY WEINER: I HAVE BILL CLINTON’S 'SUPPORT' 
 
 Anthony DelMundo/New York Daily News 
 
 Though Weiner’s political fortunes seemed doomed two years ago when he resigned from Congress in a sexting scandal, the poll found him besting City Controller John Liu, who was the choice of 12% of voters, as well as Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Controller Bill Thompson, who each had the backing of 11% of voters. 
 
 A similar poll last October found that only 28% of registered Democrats wanted Weiner, while 56% wanted him to stay out. 
 
 RELATED: SCHUMER DODGES WEINER QUESTIONS 
 
 “His numbers have improved since our previous polls, so that’s encouraging for him but there’s still huge obstacles,” Miringoff said, noting that 45% of registered Democrats wanted Weiner to run for mayor, while 46% were against him entering the race. 
 
 Miringoff said that Weiner represents enough of a threat to the mayor’s race that he could make it difficult of any candidate in the primary to get the 40% of the vote needed to avoid a runoff election, but the other candidates shrugged off the results. 
 
 RELATED: HOW WEINER WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING 
 
 Susan Watts/New York Daily News 
 
 “New Yorkers are going to vote for mayor based on who has the strongest record of delivering results and who they can trust to lead on the issues most important to the middle class,” said Quinn spokesman Mike Morey. “That person is Chris Quinn.” 
 
 The poll showed Quinn’s popularity has taken a hit in the last two months as she has been pummeled by other candidates and targeted by a $1 million ad campaign by a Super PAC opposed to her candidacy. 
 
 While 65% of voters told Marist pollsters in February that they had a positive impression of Quinn, that number dropped to 59% when Marist asked the question over the last week. 
 
 Jonathan Prince, Thompson’s chief strategist, said it was no surprise Weiner came in second in the poll. 
 
 “He's got 100% name recognition,” Prince said of Weiner. “And nobody besides Chris comes anywhere near that.” 
 
 Weiner did not respond to requests for comment. 
 
 tmoore@nydailynews.com ||||| A new Siena College poll shows that most New York City and State voters are embarrassed by the the attention given to Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer. 
 
 New York voters overwhelmingly said they are embarrassed by the media attention focused on the political comebacks being attempted by Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer, who each previously resigned from public office after a sex scandal and now are running for different New York City offices. 
 
 A Siena College poll released Monday found that 68 percent of New York State voters and 62 percent of New York City voters said they were embarrassed by what the pollsters noted was a “great deal of the attention across the country” focused on the two candidates. 
 
 The poll also held a dubious distinction for Mr. Weiner. Eighty percent of New York state voters rated him unfavorably – the highest unfavorable rating ever recorded in the Siena poll. Mr. Spitzer had a 79 percent unfavorable rating after resigning as governor in 2008 amid a prostitution scandal, but that has declined to 59 percent in the latest Siena poll, conducted Aug. 4-7 among 814 registered voters. 
 
 “We are talking about America’s most infamous tweeter and America’s most notorious ‘john,’ ” Siena pollster Steven Greenberg told the Associated Press. “Those are not the eccentricities of candidates that New York City voters usually embrace.” 
 
 Spitzer is running for city comptroller, while Weiner is running for mayor. Weiner resigned from Congress in June 2011 after it was revealed he sent sexually explicit messages to women. Public support for his mayoral bid crashed when he admitted last month to having continued to send inappropriate text messages and pictures after he resigned from Congress. 
 
 The New Yorkers who said they are most embarrassed by the coverage of the candidates were women, Republicans, and older voters, though the differences were not pronounced. Some 72 percent of women voters said they were embarrassed versus 63 percent of men. Meanwhile, 75 percent of Republicans said they were embarrassed versus 66 percent of Democrats. And 64 percent of those in the 18-34 age bracket said they were embarrassed versus 71 percent among those age 55 and older. 
 
 Sixteen percent of state voters said the attention given to the scandals is "no big deal," and 8 percent said it is entertaining. 
 
 The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
– Despite spending $100,000 on polling last month, Anthony Weiner still hasn't thrown his hat into the ring for New York's next mayoral election. But if he did today, he'd enter the race for the Democratic slot in second place, behind confirmed candidate Christine Quinn, a new poll by NBC New York and Marist College has found. Weiner had 15% of the vote among Democrats to Quinn's 26%, and his favorability rating increased from 34% to 45% over the last two months. The news comes on the back of a splashy New York Times Magazine feature, in which Weiner admitted, "I want to ask people to give me a second chance," but said his polling had established him as the underdog. But these latest poll numbers are still notable for a disgraced former politician who hasn't actually mounted a campaign. "[Weiner’s] numbers make him viable even if he hasn’t established a credible candidacy yet," the pollster told the New York Daily News. At the very least, he could be popular enough to prevent Quinn from obtaining the 40% vote she needs to avoid a runoff election. Nevertheless, 41% of respondents still have an unfavorable opinion of Weiner. "I would not vote for him at all," says one 70-year-old Brooklyn resident. "I speak with my neighbors, and they say, 'What is he, a joke?'" (Click for Weiner's wife's thoughts on his sexting scandal.)