Eric Adams, the pro-police candidate who rose to the lead of polls in recent weeks, led the New York City mayoral primary results on Tuesday in early returns for a race that centered on public safety.
Adams led with roughly 30% of early returns late Tuesday evening, although the results were inconclusive due to the city’s implementation of ranked-choice voting.
NEW YORKERS ARE CHOOSING THEIR NEXT MAYOR — BUT RESULTS MAY TAKE WEEKS, THANKS TO COMPLICATED SYSTEM
Whoever wins the Democratic nomination in the New York City primary is expected to become the next mayor due to the city’s deep-blue tint.
Maya Wiley, a progressive candidate endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, trailed at roughly 21%. Kathryn Garcia, the centrist former sanitation commissioner who polled near the top of the pack, sat at roughly 21% as well.
But the adoption of ranked-choice voting could still upend the results of the closely watched contest due to a new vote tabulation system allowing New Yorkers to rank primary candidates in order of preference.
Because no candidate was poised to attract more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday evening, the race will likely move into successive rounds of calculations that take into account the second, third, fourth, and possibly even fifth selections of primary voters — testing the system proponents say will better reflect the public’s will.
The results released Tuesday evening reflect only the first-choice rankings of in-person voters.
In the first round of vote tabulations, the candidate who has been ranked “No. 1” the fewest number of times will be eliminated.
When that happens, the “No. 2” choices on the eliminated candidate’s ballots will be added to the vote totals of the remaining candidates who were listed second. Then, the last-place finisher will be eliminated once again, with the “No. 2” choices on their ballots getting tacked on to the tallies of those who remain, and so on. If the “No. 2” choice on an eliminated candidate’s ballot has already been removed in an earlier round, then the calculation will move to the “No. 3” choices.
This process will continue for as many rounds as it takes for one candidate to amass 50% of the vote. The tabulation is conducted by computer and can happen relatively quickly once the count begins.
City officials said they won’t announce the results from the first round of ranked-choice voting until June 29, and full results from what could be many rounds of calculations may not be available until mid-July. The first rounds of calculations will only include ballots cast in person, with absentee ballots included in another set of results set to release on July 6.
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On the Republican side, candidate Curtis Silwa had more than 70% of the vote on Tuesday evening in early returns and was likely to clinch the GOP nomination.
