5 weeks till votes are counted in the special election for Mayor of San Diego, Nathan Fletcher remains the favorite, getting 32% of the vote in research conducted by SurveyUSA for KGTV-TV 10 News and the Union Tribune newspaper. Kevin Faulconer follows closely at 28%. David Alvarez is in 3rd place, at 20%.

Compared to a SurveyUSA poll released 3 weeks ago, on 09/23/13, Fletcher is up 2 points, Faulconer is up 6 points. Fletcher had led by 8, now leads by 4. Alvarez had been at 17%, now is at 20%. Among women, Fletcher had led Faulconer by 12 points, now by 3. Among Independent voters, Faulconer has moved from 3rd place to 1st.

Faulconer's support is disproportionately old. Older voters are the most reliable. The older the actual electorate, the better Faulconer will do. Fletcher and Alvarez's support is more evenly distributed across all age groups. In addition:

* Faulconer is strongly backed by Republicans, conservatives, and whites, and by voters looking for a candidates with fiscal responsibility.
* Fletcher is backed by Democrats, and by those voters looking for a candidate who can reach across party lines.
* Alvarez is backed by Hispanics and blacks and by voters focused on leadership.

If no one candidate receives a majority of the votes in the special election, the top 2 finishers will face each other in a runoff election. In hypothetical head-to-head matchups, for a possible runoff:

* Fletcher defeats Faulconer 46% to 36%.
* Fletcher defeats Alvarez 49% to 29%.
* Faulconer defeats Alvarez 44% to 35%.

Cell-phone and home-phone respondents included in this research: SurveyUSA interviewed 875 city of San Diego adults 10/07/13 through 10/10/13. Of the adults, 748 were registered to vote. Of the registered, 513 were identified by SurveyUSA as likely to vote in the 11/19/13 special election. Mayor Bob Filner resigned; the seat is open; there is no incumbent. SurveyUSA uses a blended sample, mixed mode methodology to reach a cross-section of adults in the city of San Diego. Adults are weighted to US Census targets for gender, age and race. Adults self-report whether they are registered to vote and whether they are likely to vote in the special election. SurveyUSA's results are not "force-weighted" to any particular presumed party turnout assumptions. If today's SurveyUSA data had been "force-weighted" to model voter turnout of 42% Democrat and 35% Republican, as some advocates argue turnout will be, the results of the poll would change to be: Fletcher 31%, Faulconer 29%. In either case, the same 2 candidates would advance to the runoff.