The election for Salt Lake mayor is 18 months away, but most city voters know what they would do regarding current Mayor Rocky Anderson if they voted tomorrow.

The results of a Dan Jones and Associates poll, commissioned by the Deseret Morning News and KSL-TV, showed that 39 percent of city residents say the mayor deserves to be re-elected, and another 57 percent think it's time to give someone else a chance.

That contrasts, however, with his approval ratings — 52 percent of those polled say that they strongly or somewhat approve of the job Anderson is doing, and 39 percent disapprove.

Dan Jones and Associates conducted the poll from May 1 to 4 and sampled 209 Salt Lake City residents. The margin of error is plus or minus 7 percent.

Anderson hasn't announced publicly whether he will run for re-election in 2007 at the end of his second term. He'll make that decision within the next couple of weeks, he said. He's mulling the option but said he is the best person in local politics to carry on his legacy of environmental and human rights initiatives.

"I was leaning against it a few months ago, but I'm probably more torn now," Anderson said. "It's going to be a one-year campaign in terms of raising the money and all that sort of thing."

Anderson mentioned that he's considering doing advocacy work on climate change or human rights, but he doesn't have "anything firm lined up." He wants to hold himself to a tighter timeline for deciding on the mayoral race because "I also want to move forward with whatever I decide to do," he said.

Municipal offices are non-partisan races, meaning candidates do not run on a party platform. But Anderson's liberal leanings are legendary. He protested against President Bush last August and frequently speaks against the Republican state Legislature and Bush administration. His strongest detractors are self-identified Republicans.

When broken into party affiliation and religion, poll numbers drop below statistically reliable numbers. But they show in broad terms Anderson's popularity among certain groups. Only 4 percent of "strong Republicans," for instance, said they would support a third term for the incumbent. But of the "strong Democrats" polled, 84 percent supported his re-election.

A similar split along religious lines shows that Anderson's strongest supporters self-identify with Catholicism, Protestantism or no religion. Among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Anderson's approval ratings and support for re-election hover at 26 and 12 percent, respectively.