Mayoral hopeful Gifford Miller stood in the middle of the 116th St. Market at Harlem yesterday poised to add three more endorsements to his growing list of community backers.

The only problem was that two of the three Hispanic leaders who were supposed to be endorsing Mr. Miller did not show up, and at least one of them said later that she had not committed to his candidacy.

Yesterday, during a brief phone conversation, Candy Vasquez, a district leader and community activist in Upper Manhattan, said she was confused about why Mr. Miller, who is the speaker of the City Council, made the announcement.

“I don’t know who did this, but I’m not happy about it,” Ms. Vasquez told The New York Sun. “It’s a problem and a misunderstanding.”

Though Ms. Vasquez quickly cut off the phone conversation, she indicated that she had not yet made a decision about which of the four Democratic mayoral candidates to support.

That much was confirmed by officials working for the borough president of Manhattan, C. Virginia Fields, who is also seeking the Democratic party nomination to challenge Mayor Bloomberg in November’s election.

A senior adviser to Ms. Fields, Joseph Mercurio, said his office was planning a meeting with Ms. Vasquez. “We’ve had some preliminary conversations with her,” Mr. Mercurio said. “She has not yet met with the borough president. As we understand it, she has not made an endorsement.”

Late yesterday afternoon, officials in Mr. Miller’s campaign office said they were trying to get a clarification from Ms. Vasquez on her position. As they understood it, her endorsement was solid. They even included a comment from her praising Mr. Miller’s leadership and vision in a news release that was sent out to reporters yesterday.

“It was our understanding that Ms. Vasquez was endorsing the speaker for mayor,” a campaign spokesman for the speaker, Reggie Johnson said.

Other sources in the Mr. Miller camp said they wondered whether Ms. Vasquez was pressured to change her mind after the announcement yesterday morning.

Though the three leaders do not have much name recognition outside their neighborhoods, backing from Hispanic and black leaders is going to be important to Mr. Miller’s campaign because he is white and he is running in a primary against Ms. Fields, who is black, and Fernando Ferrer, who is Hispanic.

Another district leader, Maribel Masso, did not show for the endorsement announcement yesterday either. She could not be reached for comment yesterday. A third district leader in East Harlem, Harry Rodriguez, attended the event and stood with Mr. Miller for the announcement.

The speaker – who is leading his fellow Democrats in fund-raising, but still struggling with low poll number – has been announcing endorsement from small blocks of elected officials and community groups for the last few months.

Last week, Mr. Miller announced endorsements from several Manhattan elected officials, including state senators Elizabeth Kruger and Thomas Duane. He has also secured support from blocks of elected leaders on Staten Island and in Brooklyn, two outer boroughs where the Upper East Side council member is trying to boost his name recognition.

In this campaign season, mayoral campaigns have been announcing new endorsements on a near daily basis. On Wednesday, the Democratic frontrunner, Mr. Ferrer, added three minority members of Congress to his list: Reps. Major Owens, Edolphus Towns, and Nydia Valazquez.

The endorsements, analysts say, could help Mr. Ferrer recover from comments he made to a group of police sergeants last week when he was accused of changing his position on the police shooting of an unarmed African immigrant.

Mr. Ferrer, who was arrested during a protest denouncing police brutality after the shooting, said the shooting did not rise to the level of a crime. He also said there was an attempt to “overindict” in the case.

At least one political analyst predicted yesterday that unless the mix-up involved a high-profile endorsement, that it would quickly fade into the political background.

“These kind of glitches happen every once in awhile,” said Democratic political consultant, Jerry Skurnik. “It’s a little embarrassing, but nobody really remembers it.”

“Usually it’s not that the campaign made a mistake,” he said. “She must have said something to indicate that she was supporting him. You have to wonder whether she changed her mind after the fact.”