Mayor Bloomberg’s approval ratings are climbing and his chances of beating his Democratic opponents are growing, according to a new poll released yesterday by Quinnipiac University.

The poll numbers came on the same day the Bloomberg administration released encouraging new data on the “impact school” program to reduce crime at city public schools – an announcement that further bolstered Mr. Bloomberg’s argument that he has been successful in fixing schools, a top priority of voters.

All in all, it seemed a good day for the mayor, who won his highest approval rating in three years, with 55% of voters saying they approve of the work he is doing at City Hall.

“It’s a very good-looking pattern for Bloomberg,” the director of the polling institute, Maurice Carroll, said. “Things can happen. You can’t just project a straight line in a poll. Political mathematics are a little fluid. But these numbers look for Bloomberg very, very good.”

The percentage of voters saying they would vote for Mr. Bloomberg jumped in relation to the candidates who want to take his job. If the election were held now, Mr. Bloomberg would beat the Democratic front-runner, Fernando Ferrer, by 50% to 37%, the poll concluded. That spread has grown by 4 percentage points since the previous Quinnipiac poll was released in May.

Mr. Bloomberg’s numbers jumped in relation to his closest Democratic rival despite support for Mr. Ferrer among Hispanic and Bronx voters. A full 51% of Hispanic voters said they would support Mr. Ferrer, compared to 40% who said they would re-elect the mayor, and 49% of Bronx voters said they would support their former borough president, compared to 38% of Bronx voters in the poll who backed the mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg’s margin of victory also grew in match-ups between him and the other three Democratic candidates: the Manhattan borough president, C. Virginia Fields; the City Council speaker, Gifford Miller, and a congressman from Queens, Anthony Weiner. The poll found that among all Democratic primary voters in the survey, Mr. Ferrer led the pack with 31%. Ms. Fields won the backing of 19% of those respondents, and Mr. Weiner and Mr. Miller each had 12%.

In the May poll, Mr. Ferrer had a lead of 27% to Ms. Fields’s 23%.

In addition, the poll found that the mayor has substantial support when it comes to his backup plan for the 2012 Olympics, with 61% of voters endorsing the new stadium to be built by the New York Mets in Queens, and just 29% opposing it. A veteran political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, said the demise of the plan for a New York Jets stadium on the far West Side of Manhattan ended up helping Mr. Bloomberg in the polls.

“Bloomberg won by losing,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. “The billionaire became less distant when he lost. He got knocked down. He lost the battle and he came right back up. … Not only did he gain the numbers, but the electorate is beginning to really like him. This is a very, very, very ‘New York’ trait.”

Mr. Sheinkopf said that to boost their numbers the Democrats must come up with an issue they can use to tarnish the mayor. He said education would be a good one – but education is an issue Mr. Bloomberg has claimed as his own.

Hours after the release of the poll results, Mr. Bloomberg stood at Theodore Roosevelt High School in the Bronx to announce that total crime at the original 16 impact schools had dropped 39% compared to the previous school year; violent crime had dropped 49%, and major crime had dropped 39%. Six schools were removed from the list of violent schools as a result of their progress.

“Students cannot learn in a violent atmosphere,” Mr. Bloomberg said, flanked by his police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein. “By increasing the number of school safety personnel, strictly enforcing the disciplinary code, and improving our management systems, we have been able to transform these schools into safer places of learning.”

Mr. Bloomberg said initial data for all public schools indicate that major crimes and violent crimes are down citywide.

Mr. Carroll, of Quinnipiac, said polls show that voters care about “anything involving kids,” and he said positive announcements about the direction of the schools are likely to pay off for the mayor.

Representatives of Mr. Bloomberg’s political rivals said they weren’t put off by yesterday’s news.

“Freddy is not really focused on polls,” Mr. Ferrer’s spokeswoman, Jen Bluestein, said. “Polls go up and polls go down, and he’s more focused on taking his message about a city that works better for all New Yorkers to neighborhoods throughout the city, and of course he values the strong support he’s getting from Democrats in all those neighborhoods.”

Mr. Weiner’s spokesman, Anson Kaye, also gave the poll a positive spin: “In a race where Anthony is just getting known, and in a contest that traditionally breaks late, Anthony Weiner is only seven points out of the runoff.”

A senior adviser to Ms. Fields, Joseph Mercurio, said his candidate is not as well-known as Mr. Ferrer and Mr. Miller but is “challenging the mayor effectively.” Mr. Mercurio said: “After her media campaign and a primary win, one would expect her to ultimately do better than her colleagues would in the November matchup against Bloomberg.”

The latest poll was taken June 12-19 among a random sample of 1,780 registered voters.

The overall sampling error is plus or minus 2.3%, but the margin of error for subgroups, such as Hispanics, is wider.