Poll: NYPD's Ray Kelly the next mayor

Mayor Ray Kelly?

A Quinnipiac poll released yesterday shows NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly is the frontrunner for the next mayor of our fine city. While he hasn't given any hints of running for office in 2013, he would be the candidate to beat, with 23 percent of New Yorkers (17 percent with Democrats) saying they'd like to see him in running the city. That puts him five points ahead of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who polled with 18 percent (20 percent with Democrats).

With Bronxites, Kelly and Quinn came in one-two, but the gap was much smaller. Kelly received 18 percent of the vote to Quinn's 17. However, more Bronxites (22 percent) said they did not know who they would vote for at all.

Other questions asked cover the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, as well as the other candidates running for office. Not much of a surprise--Bronxites mostly disapprove of how Bloomberg has handled his last term.

In related mayoral news, WNYC put together an interactive graphic of contributions given to candidates, broken down by zip code. The Bronx, by what looks like a landslide, has given the least amount of money to any candidate. That may be because the Bronx doesn't have a hometown candidate (Brooklyn has DeBlasio and Thompson, Manhattan has Stringer and Quinn, Queens has Liu), though it's probably related to a variety of other reasons as well. Although, if you want to make a stretch, Ray Kelly is a Manhattan College alum (MC is in Riverdale, remember! And yes, I'm a former Jasper myself), so if he gets involved in the race he could try to take advantage of the other candidates' lack of Bronx roots.