Gifford Miller has rolled out more endorsements and raised more money than any of the other three Democrats vying for the party’s nomination to take on Mayor Bloomberg.

He gets more press coverage because of his job as speaker of the City Council, where he can call a news conference on a moment’s notice and lure a bank of television cameras.

Like the other candidates, he is perpetually on the move, visiting senior centers early in the morning and attending community forums until well into the evening.

Yet poll numbers indicate that with four months to go until the Democratic primary, Mr. Miller’s campaign has not generated traction with voters.

A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that Mr. Miller ranked last among the Democratic mayoral hopefuls, with support from only 11% of the registered Democrats surveyed. His numbers in the polls have been stagnant for months, despite the $4.7 million he has in the bank and the elected officials who have come forward to back his campaign.

Meanwhile, support in the polls for a former borough president of the Bronx, Fernando Ferrer, and the borough president of Manhattan, C. Virginia Fields, has fluctuated, but both have been well ahead of Mr. Miller. Rep. Anthony Weiner, whose district straddles the Brooklyn-Queens border, has been on par with Mr. Miller but does not have the same kind of money, endorsements, or even press coverage.

Mr. Miller’s standing in the polls has left some political observers wondering whether the speaker, who represents the Upper East Side but is barred by term limits from seeking re-election, will be able to break out of the bottom bracket of competitors and generate momentum as the mayoral primary gets closer and voters begin to pay more attention.

A political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, said Mr. Miller may see a bounce once he starts advertising on television and wraps up budget negotiations at the Council. What the candidate needs, Mr. Sheinkopf said, is more free time for handshaking and “retail” campaigning.

“You have a problem where a guy with more money and more endorsements is stuck,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. “Ultimately, if he’s going to be a player, it’s going to be once he’s out of that building and he hits the street.”

Mr. Sheinkopf said that while the speaker’s numbers will surely benefit from television spots, none of the Democrats will be able to dominate prime time during popular shows such as “The Apprentice” because of spending limits that they must abide by as participants in the city’s program of public financing of campaigns.

Mr. Miller has not shied away from taking on Mr. Bloomberg. The Council speaker has passed legislation to block the mayor from using city money to subsidize a football stadium on Manhattan’s West Side, has put together a commission to study how best to spend money on public schools, and has unveiled tax proposals that he says would help both the mass-transit system and the public schools.

Despite all of that, his poll numbers have not budged.

The director of the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York, John Mollenkopf, said that while the campaign is still just getting going, Mr. Miller’s trailing polls numbers were “puzzling.”

“He’s grown in office, he’s become more capable and more effective,” Mr. Mollenkopf said. “So it is puzzling. I’m sure his campaign, probably all of the campaigns, are busy trying to figure out what it is.”

One explanation that continues to come up is that Mr. Miller lacks a solid base in boroughs other than Manhattan because he is white and Protestant and from the Upper East Side. He does not have the inborn connections to Hispanic, black, or Jewish groups that the other Democrats enjoy.

Mr. Miller, 35, has consistently down played any frustration he may have with the numbers. His campaign continues to go after support from minority leaders and elected officials outside Manhattan, who they hope will get constituents out on Primary Day in September.

“I have more political clubs, more elected officials, more unions, more county organizations, more ministers, more Democratic clubs, and more donors than any other candidate in this race,” Mr. Miller said during a phone interview late last week. “But for the vast majority of the public, it’s very early in the election, and they’ll tune in a little later.”

“It’s hard to change somebody’s mind who’s not thinking about an election,” Mr. Miller said. “History has proven over and over again that early polls don’t need much other than name recognition.”

In May 2001, Quinnipiac University polls showed that the then-public advocate, Mark Green, the eventual Democratic nominee, was leading with 33% of the vote. Mr. Ferrer, who has been the front-runner this year, was tied with the then-city comptroller, Alan Hevesi, at 17%, and the council speaker, Peter Vallone Sr., trailed with 13%.

By September of that year, Messrs. Green and Ferrer, who ended up in a run-off election, were neck and neck, and Mr. Vallone had edged up fractionally while Mr. Hevesi fell behind. Political insiders cite that situation to show that there is a political eon between now and the election. And, as voters have already seen in the 2005 race with Mr. Ferrer, whose numbers dropped after what was perceived as a flub over the Amadou Diallo shooting, unexpected setbacks sometimes occur.

Mr. Vallone, who is endorsing Mr. Miller this time, said early polls are often misleading. He also said, from experience, that it is difficult to run as speaker of the council, because while name recognition is high in government circles, most New Yorkers don’t pay attention to council happenings.

When Mr. Vallone ran in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in 1998, he said, his poll numbers improved significantly from the time he entered the contest until he won the party nomination to challenge Governor Pataki.

“I think they are going to go up,” he said of Mr. Miller’s numbers.

“Mine went up in the mayoral” in 2001, he said, adding, “If I had another two weeks, I probably could have won.”

Mr. Miller’s campaign strategy has outwardly seemed unchanged since he declared his candidacy. Still, his high-profile campaign strategist, Mandy Grunwald, who has worked with both President Clinton and Senator Clinton on their campaigns, made an appearance last week at one of Mr. Miller’s speeches.

It is unclear whether Ms. Grunwald’s presence was a response to the most recent poll or simply a routine visit, but Miller campaign aides said she was involved in refining the speech, which focused on transportation.

That process of image-building cannot be overlooked, experts said. An associate professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, Peter Golder, who is not following the mayoral race closely, said that no matter what issues a candidate discusses during a campaign, voters will ultimately evaluate the candidate’s personality and ability to connect.

“Politicians, like brands, need something exciting to break through the clutter,” Mr. Golder said.

Mr. Miller has been criticized by one of his challengers, Mr. Weiner, for working the Democratic machine. His response is that Mr. Weiner sought the same endorsements. “The fact that you didn’t get them doesn’t make you an outsider,” he said at a forum Sunday. “It means you don’t have their support.”

As for the polls, Mr. Miller has said, as so many candidates say, the only “real poll” is on Election Day.