As of Wednesday, June 23, Eric Adams is in the lead in the Democratic Primary for New York City’s next mayor. Voting has closed, but it may take a few weeks to learn who officially won the Democratic Primary for the Mayoral Race.
Not only are absentee ballots still coming in, but New York has also instituted a new ranked choice voting system, which allows voters to list their top five choices for mayor in order of preference. Since no candidate won in majority, the ranked choice preferences of voters will now be redistributed. The candidates with the fewest numbers of votes will be removed in an elimination and redistribution process that is estimated to last through July.
Adams received 31.7% of the vote on Tuesday, but counting will continue since no candidate has earned more than 50% of first-choice votes from Democrats in New York City. Currently, Maya Wiley holds second place with 22% of first-choice votes, followed by Kathryn Garcia in third with 19.5% of Tuesday’s vote.
Eric Adams was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn into a working-class household and became Brooklyn Borough President in 2013. He would just be the city’s second Black mayor. Although he is a former police officer, Adams has previously been an advocate for police reform. According to Michael Hendrix, director of state and local policy at the Manhattan Institute, he does not want to defund the police but rather would like to see them “engage in true community policing.”
Maya Wiley has a different approach to public safety than Adams; she pledged to reallocate $1 billion of the police department’s $6 billion budget. She also gained support from progressive Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
When asked about the primary, Adams said, “We know that there’s going to be twos and threes and fours, but there’s something else we know. We know that New York City said, ‘Our first choice is Eric Adams.”
