Freddy's fall vs. Mike
just 1 of his woes

BY MICHAEL SAUL and MAGGIE HABERMAN
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

After watching his lead over Mayor Bloomberg collapse, Democratic front-runner Fernando Ferrer has primary opponent Virginia Fields bearing down on him, a new poll showed yesterday.

But Ferrer's troubles are only half of the story of the Marist Institute poll - Bloomberg's numbers gained strength across the board, including over the other Democrats, experts said.

Ferrer's numbers started falling after he declared to a police group that the 1999 Amadou Diallo cop shooting wasn't a crime. Fallout from the comment overshadowed the West Side stadium debate, according to Marist pollster Lee Miringoff.

Fields also appears to be picking up support from black voters in the primary race against Ferrer. There's now just a 4-point difference between them, 34% to 30%, meaning a Democratic runoff seems likelier, experts said.

"It's a sea change for [Ferrer]," Miringoff said. "Mostly driving these numbers is the inability of the Ferrer campaign to contain the [Diallo] story, and as a result what we're witnessing is Democratic voters really reevaluating the field."

In a head-to-head matchup, Bloomberg leads Ferrer by 13 percentage points, 51% to 38%. He also bests Democrat Anthony Weiner by 12 percentage points and Gifford Miller by 16.

The poll showed Ferrer's support among black voters has slipped dramatically, but perhaps even more alarming, the former Bronx borough president leads the mayor just 49% to 43% among Hispanic voters, his core constituency.

Some 47% of people want to see Bloomberg reelected, compared with 39% in March, and his job approval rating went up slightly to 48% from 43%.

"As I've said all along, polls are going to go up and down," Ferrer said.

"Obviously when polls go up you have a bigger smile on your face [than] when they go down. But I can't worry about polls," Bloomberg said.

The poll's margin of error for the general election was plus or minus 4.5%, and 5.5% for the primary.