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CNN Live At Daybreak

New York City Votes on Giuliani's Successor

Aired November 06, 2001 - 07:51   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Since September 11, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has become the symbol of how to lead during a crisis. Some call him America's mayor.

But Rudy's term is up, and because of term limits, he wasn't able to run again. Well, today, New York voters choose a successor, who will be facing an immense challenge rebuilding the city.

CNN's Jason Carroll joins us now live at one of the polling places -- good morning. Is there much of a turnout there this morning?

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That would be an understatement, Paula. I want you to take a look behind me. This polling place here on the upper east side is packed with voters, who are coming out. All of these people want to have their votes counted, as you can imagine. Whoever will be the next mayor of New York City is probably going to be one of the most important political jobs in the country.

Let's tell you who we have here in this race. On one side, we have the Republican billionaire, Michael Bloomberg. He had been trailing throughout the campaign, but late in the campaign, he got the endorsement of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. That really seems to have given him a boost. Bloomberg has spent some $40 million throughout this campaign, mostly on TV ads that seems to have helped him as well.

Now let's switch over to the Democratic side. On that side, you have New York City's public advocate, Mark Green. Green has the endorsement of the Clintons, and also of former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, as well as Senator Lieberman and Senator Ted Kennedy -- lots of endorsements on that side.

Here is what we have in this race, Paula. We have a lot of undecided voters -- one poll showing that we've got about 15 percent of undecided voters in this race; the same poll showing that the race is a dead heat.

Statistically, there is no difference between these two candidates, so it's really going to come down to the undecided voters in this race. And because of that, it seems like we probably won't know who the winner is long after the polls close. The polls close at 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time -- Paula. ZAHN: Well, it will be interesting to see if other polling places around the city look like the one where you're at. Thank goodness I'm not voting at your polling precinct. I'm hoping mine will be a little bit quieter later on today. A good sign, though, that people are getting out to vote -- Jason Carroll, thanks so much.

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