Poll: District backs Weiner not resigning

Under growing pressure to quit, Rep. Anthony Weiner Thursday insisted again he won't resign, and a new poll showed a majority of voters in his district agreed he should stay in office.

The Queens Democrat made his defiant statement after Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) joined the calls for him to step down over revelations of his salacious social-media life, and Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said he can't see how Weiner will be able to stay on.

Asked by the New York Post in a streetside Manhattan encounter if he planned to resign, Weiner said, "I'm not."

As he headed to his Queens office, he added, "I betrayed a lot of people and I know it, and I'm trying to get back to work now and try to make amends to my constituents, and of course to my family."

Weiner also claimed the backing of his pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is with her in United Arab Emirates on a weeklong overseas trip.

"She's bearing up well and she's back at work and she's doing a great job," he said.

A new Marist poll, conducted Wednesday and released Thursday, found 56 percent of the registered voters in his 9th Congressional District in Queens and Brooklyn don't think he should quit.

But the poll also included troubling news for Weiner -- only 30 percent said they'd definitely vote for him again.

A total of 512 adults responded. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 41/2 percentage points.

Weiner has found little support among congressional Democrats since he admitted he lied repeatedly when denying the sexting revelations.

His New York colleagues remained silent about his predicament, and the only Democrats who are speaking up have urged him to resign, as have several Republicans.

King, who has sparred with Weiner on the House floor, Thursday said Weiner can no longer be effective in Congress. "What he does in the next few days is up to him, but it has spiraled so fast, I don't see how he stays on," King said. "But right now, I leave that decision to him."

As Weiner tries to tough it out, he faces a new media circus and an expected House Ethics Committee investigation when he returns to Washington on Monday after a weeklong House recess.

Weiner has hired a law firm, Baker Hostetler, for the investigation requested by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steve Israel (D-Dix Hills), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

During his news conference Monday, Weiner said he had sent lewd messages and photos of himself on social media to six women in the past three years.

The identity of a fifth woman became known Thursday. The Las Vegas Sun reported that Traci Nobles, 34, a physical education teacher in Athens, Ga., confirmed after her roommate outed her that she had sexually charged exchanges on Facebook with Weiner.

The four other women are Meagan Broussard, 26, a single mother from Texas; Lisa Weiss, a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas; porn star Ginger Lee; and Gennette Cordova, a 21-year-old college student in Washington state.

"I really regret that this was sent to you," Nobles told the Sun after the unnamed roommate emailed the newspaper a Facebook screen shot of an exchange. The Sun said the excerpt shows the two calling each other "sexy" and "sugar" and arranging a meeting for the next day, although it's unclear whether it was to take place online or in person.