Mayor Bloomberg’s re-election bid got a shot in the arm yesterday as the latest Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey put him and the Democratic front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, in a dead-even race for City Hall.

Just last month, Mr. Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president, beat the mayor in a theoretical matchup, 45% to 40%, and had bested the mayor in a succession of polls that put him between 4 and 7 percentage points ahead since last February. The latest poll said the two candidates were each favored by 43% of the registered voters who were surveyed.

In addition, Mr. Bloomberg beat other likely challengers, including the City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, and the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields.

“No one beats Mayor Bloomberg today,” the director of the poll, Maurice Carroll, said. “The mayor …starts his reelection year with a comfortable lead over other Democratic challengers.”

A political consultant, George Arzt, said the latest poll results were just the beginning of what he expects to be a change in momentum, in the direction of the mayor. “As the election goes forward, you will see the power of incumbency come forth,” he said. “Bloomberg and his advisers will make use of all the powers of the mayoralty. They still have the budget to roll out, and new projects and all kinds of Christmas-tree ideas that will please the various constituencies he needs for re-election.”

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mr. Bloomberg said he didn’t put much stock in the monthly poll numbers. “I always counsel people not to look at the short-term polls because they don’t always go the way you want,” he said. “I’d obviously rather have them go up than down.”

Mr. Ferrer was more sanguine. “Polls go up and polls go down – I don’t put much stock in them and I’m certainly not focused on them,” he said.

Mr. Bloomberg’s approval rating in the new poll was at 50%. That is about where he stood in last month’s Quinnipiac survey. The new poll found 37% of respondents disapproved of the way the mayor is handling his job, the same percentage as in November.

The poll also showed that there is a wide racial divide between those who support the mayor and those who grumble about the job he is doing. Whites approved of Bloomberg by a much greater ratio than did other voters, with 60% of whites surveyed said he was doing a good job compared with 39% of blacks and 42% of Hispanics.

In a theoretical contest with the mayor, Ms. Fields would get 39% of the vote to Mr. Bloomberg’s 44%, the poll found. Mr. Miller would get 38% to Bloomberg’s 43%,and a member of Congress from Brooklyn, Anthony Weiner, would get 36% to Mr. Bloomberg’s 43%. Charles Barron, a council member from East New York, would get 31% to the mayor’s 46%, the survey found.

The poll was taken before a former council Republican leader, Thomas Ognibene, announced he would challenge the mayor in a primary, because, Mr. Ognibene said, the mayor has broken so completely with the Republican Party by raising taxes and distancing himself from President Bush.

The tax issue is a potent one to use against the mayor. Mr. Bloomberg’s popularity plummeted after he raised property taxes 18.5% in 2002, a move he said was necessary to help close a $6 billion budget deficit. The latest Quinnipiac poll suggested Mr. Bloomberg’s tax policy would be a pivotal issue come November. Some 91% of voters said his handling of taxes would be “very” or “somewhat” important in deciding whether to re-elect him.

“The mayor is giving people another $400 tax rebate this year, and his budget director, Mark Page, is a very smart guy who knows where to find money for little goodies that voters want,” Mr. Arzt said. “That’s what we’ll see at the end of the month when he rolls out his budget and that will keep his poll numbers going up.”

The latest Quinnipiac survey was a poll of 1,027 New York City registered voters questioned from January 11 through January 17. Mr. Bloomberg’s State of the City address was January 11. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.