Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams took the lead in New York City's mayoral primary race Tuesday, but it will still take weeks to produce an official winner. In the city's first ranked-choice mayor's race, voters chose their top five candidates in order of preference. Absentee and affidavit ballots have yet to be counted in the race, according to the city's Board of Elections. The deadline for absentee ballots is June 29. A plurality of Democrats chose Adams as their frontrunner, according to unofficial results from New York City Board of Elections. Adams received 31.7% of votes Tuesday.But since no candidate earned more than 50% of first-choice votes from Democrats, counting will continue in rounds. At the end of each round, the last-place candidate is eliminated and voters who chose that candidate will have their vote counted for their next choice. Because New York City leans Democratic, the leading Democratic candidate is highly favored to take over Gracie Mansion after the general election.
Eric Adams leads Primary Night
As results came in Tuesday night, the former police captain celebrated, basking in his expected lead. "New York City said our first choice is Eric Adams," he told a roomful of supporters. In a race that began in the midst of the pandemic, and ended as the city saw a spike in gun violence, the former cop ran hard on a promise to reform policing while fighting crime."You don't know this. I know this. I'm going to keep my city safe," he said.Close behind Adams was progressive Democrat Maya Wiley, who offered voters a vastly different approach to public safety. She has pledged to reallocate $1 billion of the police department's $6 billion budget. "You must also be accountable to every single one of us, because this is not a false choice," she said. She received 22% of votes. Wiley has gained the endorsements of progressive New Yorkers Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezand Jamaal Bowman.
Kathryn Garcia rounds out the race and Andrew Yang concedes
Third-place-finisher Kathryn Garcia said the public and media shouldn't count her campaign out just yet. Garcia received 19.5% of the vote Tuesday.Since the final tallies will transfer votes to frontrunners as last place finishers get eliminated, she believes the race is still wide open."This is going to be about not only the 1s. But also about the 2s and 3s and to be honest, we're not going to know more tonight than we know now," she said referring to the ranked-choice system. With only 11.7% of votes, former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang will not be moving on to the next stage in his campaign. Yang conceded after 11 p.m. Tuesday, saying he couldn't win the nomination with the numbers he had. He said in his speech, "Our city was in crisis and we believed we could help." Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.