New York City Mayoral Race: Democratic PrimaryThe Weekend before the election.

On Tuesday, New York City voters will go to the polls to decide the Democratic and Republican candidates to be the next mayor. The conventional wisdom is the Democratic nominee holds a huge advantage over whichever candidate the Republicans put forward, so the Democratic primary is being given the lion's share of interest.

Since mid-August, just after Anthony Weiner's habit of sending portraits of his penis to strangers became common knowledge, the front runner has been Bill De Blasio. It is widely agreed that the ads featuring his 15 year old son Dante, he of the remarkable adolescent baritone and even cooler Afro, have made quite the impact.

This Sunday, a new poll from Marist has been  published which agrees with the general trend if not the exact numbers.

Candidate recent % (previous %)

Marist - 9/6 recent, 8/14 previous
De Blasio 36% (24%)
Thompson 20% (16%)
Quinn 20% (24%)
Other 16% (21%)
None of the Above 8% (15%)

Quinnipiac - 9/1 recent, 8/12 previous
De Blasio 43% (30%)
Thompson 20% (22%)
Quinn 18% (24%)
Other 12% (17%)
None of the Above 7% (7%)

Siena - 8/28 recent, 8/7 previous
De Blasio 32% (14%)
Thompson 18% (16%)
Quinn 17% (25%)
Other 16% (19%)
None of the Above 17% (26%)

The agreement is across the board. De Blasio had a great September, Quinn took a beating and Thompson improved enough to probably be the favorite for second place if that matters. De Blasio is seen as the progressive candidate and the candidate for the boroughs other than Manhattan. Even the fact that De Blasio is a Red Sox fan may not be enough to stop him.

Of the three polls, Quinnipiac has been the one that has found the most support for De Blasio and Siena has lagged, but that may be due to Siena being first to polls in each case. That leaves Marist, last to poll and the median poll for De Blasio support both mid-August and early September.

If we accept Marist as the most reliable because of being the median, there are three outcomes that look possible on Tuesday.

De Blasio gets more than 40% on the first ballot: 34%
A De Blasio-Thompson run-off: 36%
A De Blasio-Quinn run-off: 30%

If I were putting a wager on this three way outcome, I'd put my buck on De Blasio-Thompson in a run-off, though any of these three results can hardly be called an upset. The only thing that would make me doubt my sanity or the validity of my methods is De Blasio finishing third. There hasn't been a poll in more than three weeks that shows that result to be even close to plausible.

I'll be back on Tuesday evening to report the actual vote.