New Yorkers weigh on which mayoral candidate is best during a crisis

When the city is paralyzed by a disaster or other crisis, New Yorkers look to their mayor for leadership and have little patience when they are judged to have come up short.

Edward Koch's defiant tone during a 1980 transit strike won him plaudits, and Rudolph Giuliani's finest hours followed the Sept. 11 attacks. But Mayor Michael Bloomberg caught flak for a slow recovery from a 2010 blizzard and for his reluctance to cancel the New York City Marathon while the city was reeling from Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

The amNewYork/News 12 poll found that a small plurality of Democratic voters trusted Christine Quinn would do the best job leading the city through a natural disaster or terrorist attack, but she is closely trailed by her rivals in the Sept. 10 primary.

For Republican voters, former MTA chief Joe Lhota, who was praised for his handling of the city's mass transit system during superstorm Sandy, is their top pick with nearly 50 percent of the vote.