New York City Voters Head To Polls For Highly-Contested Mayoral Election Primary

It’s primary day on Tuesday in New York City as voters there cast their ballots in party primary elections for city offices, with the Democratic Primary for the mayoral election being the most highly-watched and closely contested, between former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.

New York City’s incumbent mayor, Eric Adams, has chosen to run for re-election as an independent candidate, meaning that he is not on the ballot in this primary election.

Adams’s tenure as mayor has been controversial and he is unpopular with the city’s Democrats. Cuomo—who served as the Governor of the State of New York from 2011 to 2021 and is the scion of the Cuomo political family—has long been the frontrunner in the mayoral primary, though he has recently seen a strong challenge from Mamdani, a 33-year-old Indian-Ugandan immigrant who is running on a left-wing platform.

“I’m proud to be the labor candidate in this race—endorsed by most major labor unions, 650,000 working men and women. Because the labor movement is the heart and the soul of the Democratic Party,” Cuomo wrote on social media on June 22.

He scooped up dozens of endorsements in recent weeks, including that of The New York Times editorial board, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and several high-ranking federal and state officials, including some from other states.

Mamdani, by contrast, has received the endorsement of progressive figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), among others.

[ZH: PolyMarket sees Mamdani as the front-runner for now...]

The NYPost has made it clear how it feels...

Given the strong Democratic lean of New York City, the Democratic primary election has usually been the real contest of the city’s mayoral election.

Apart from the office of mayor, voters will cast primary ballots for several citywide offices, such as the public advocate, comptroller, the district attorneys of various judicial districts in the city, as well as city councilors.

In several of these races, incumbents are running for re-election, through New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (D) has decided to run for mayor instead.

New York City voters will be using “ranked-choice voting” to select their parties’ nominees. The system differs from the usual first-past-the-post voting in that, instead of casting one vote, voters may rank all candidates in order of preference.

After the first round of tallying, where all first-preference votes are counted, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and their voters’ second-preference votes are added to other candidates’ tallies, respectively.

This process continues until one candidate crosses the threshold of 50 percent of the vote, at which point they are elected.

Polls opened at 6 a.m. and the primary results will be tallied after polls close at 9 p.m.

The general election will be held on Nov. 4 of this year.