NEW YORK CITY: New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner on Tuesday admitted sending lewd texts and photographs under the moniker “Carlos Danger” to a young woman after resigning from Congress over a similar scandal.

According to news website “The Dirty,” Weiner, 48, used the name to contact the woman on Facebook and establish an online relationship with her which involved the exchange of intimate photographs.

In a statement from his campaign team, Weiner confirmed that the latest allegations were substantially true but tried to present them as having been covered by his previous confession.

“I said that other texts and photos were likely to come out, and today they have,” it read.

“As I have said in the past, these things that I did were wrong and hurtful to my wife and caused us to go through challenges in our marriage that extended past my resignation from Congress.

“While some things that have been posted today are true and some are not, there is no question that what I did was wrong. This behavior is behind me.”A poll last week suggested Weiner is well-placed to become the Democratic candidate to succeed Michael Bloomberg as the mayor of New York, with voters apparently largely indifferent to his scandal-tainted past.

Pollsters from Quinnipiac University ascribed Weiner's strong showing to his popularity with women, even though his main rival for the Democratic nomination is New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn.

That popularity has been, in turn, put down to the fact that Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, who's mother is Pakistani, is a former advisor to Hillary Clinton, has stood by him.

"When we faced this two years ago, it was the beginning of a time in our marriage that was very difficult, and it took us a very long time to get through this," she said. "Our marriage, like many others, has had its ups and its downs."

"It took a lot of work and a whole lot of therapy," she said, emphasising the phrase "whole lot."

Abedin was pregnant at the time of Weiner's resignation from Congress and she has since given birth to their son. New York's primary elections are due on September 10 ahead of the mayoral election on November 5.

Current mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected as an independent, but New York has traditionally been regarded as Democratic turf, and the winner of that party's primary usually has a strong chance of going on to run the city.