Good morning. It’s a very hot Tuesday. We’ll get details on today’s Democratic primary.
At the end of a day like today, Primary Day in New York, it’s always about numbers.
There’s the number of votes the winner won by.
There’s the number of people who voted.
And today, there’s also a number that election-watchers usually don’t watch: the temperature.
With the city under an extreme heat warning until 8 tonight, it may hit 100. That is far warmer than the last time there was a primary for mayor, in 2021. That day, the high was a seasonable 78.
This time around, the heat could affect the turnout in a race that could turn on whether former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s union supporters and paid staff members head off Zohran Mamdani’s volunteers.
Here’s another number: 384,338.
That’s the number of voters who don’t have to think about standing in a sweaty line at a polling site. They’ve already cast their ballots, having taken advantage of early voting, which ended on Sunday. (Here is yet another number: 78,442. That is how many voters checked in at polling places on Sunday, by far the busiest of the nine days of early voting.)
The early-voting total is slightly more than twice the number of early voters in the 2021 primary, the first time the city had used ranked-choice voting, which lets citizens select up to five candidates in order of preference. Some voters still complain that the ranked-choice system is not as easy as 1, 2, 3. Or 4 and 5.
Here’s what to know if you didn’t vote early.
When and where to vote
The city’s 1,213 polling places will open at 6 a.m. and close at 9 p.m.
For the more than 35,000 poll workers who have been hired for the day, it will be a long one: They are expected to be on the job for 17 hours, including an hour before the doors open and an hour after they close.
That makes the heat “fundamentally a facilities and work force challenge” for the Board of Elections, said Vincent Ignizio, its deputy executive director, “and we are treating it with the urgency it deserves.” He said the board was sending fans to locations that do not have air- conditioning.
As for voters, Ignizio said they should “take necessary precautions when heading to the polls.”
So maybe take your own water. Brad Lander’s campaign has trained organizers to recognize signs of heat stroke and plans to send cars to polling sites with water, Gatorade, hydration packs and coolers.
You can find your polling place here and check waiting times here.
Am I eligible to vote in the mayoral primary?
Only if you are already registered.
If you haven’t registered to vote, it’s too late. The last day to register for the primary was June 14.
It’s also too late to request a mail ballot. If you did and you haven’t sent it back, the envelope must be postmarked no later than today. You can also drop off your mail ballot at the Board of Elections office in the borough you live in by 9 p.m. or at any polling place.
When will we know who won?
Probably not tonight, because of ranked-choice voting.
The Board of Elections will post unofficial results from today’s voting after the polls close at 9 p.m. But in a contentious mayoral race with 11 candidates, it’s unlikely that anyone will get more than 50 percent of the vote.
That’s where ranked choice will come in, but not until next week. The Board of Elections won’t begin elimination-round tabulations until then. Whoever has the most votes in the final round will be declared the winner.
Who’s running for mayor?
The two front-runners, Cuomo and Mamdani, have run notably different campaigns. Cuomo, a 67-year-old moderate, relied on essentially the same playbook he used in statewide races, with negative television commercials and mailings.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, has ridden a wave of energy from mostly young, left-leaning voters. He claims to have 46,000 unpaid volunteers. He has also collected more than 27,000 individual donations, several times Cuomo’s total of 6,300. But Cuomo has the support of a super PAC called Fix the City, which has raised more than $24 million, including more than $8 million from former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
What about the issues? The New York Times’s political team analyzed excerpts from recent speeches by the top four candidates in the polls — Cuomo; Mamdani; Brad Lander, the city comptroller; and Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker.
Who’s not on the ballot?
Mayor Eric Adams. He won the Democratic primary in 2021 but decided to sit this one out. He plans to run as an independent in November against the winner of today’s primary and the Republican nominee, Curtis Sliwa.
Who else is on the ballot?
All 51 City Council seats are up for election this year, and there are big names on the primary ballot in a couple of districts.
Former Representative Anthony Weiner, whose sexting scandals ended his time in Congress and doomed a bid for mayor, is running in a district that runs from Midtown Manhattan to the East Village.
Virginia Maloney — whose mother, former Representative Carolyn Maloney, spent 10 years on the City Council before she was elected to Congress in 1993 — is competing in a district that runs from the East 90s to East 14th Street in Manhattan.
Four candidates are running to succeed Lander as comptroller. The two leading candidates are Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president, and Justin Brannan, a member of the City Council from Brooklyn. Also on the ballot are State Senator Kevin Parker of Brooklyn and Ismael Malavé Pérez.
The public advocate, Jumaane Williams, is being challenged by Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar from Queens and Marty Dolan, a retired insurance executive.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is facing a challenge from Patrick Timmins, a civil litigator and former prosecutor in the Bronx. And three candidates are running for Manhattan borough president: State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal; Keith Powers, a member of the City Council; and Calvin Sun, an emergency-room physician.
Weather
An extreme heat warning is in effect as hot and sunny conditions continue, with temperatures soaring toward 100. Tonight will remain warm, with temperatures dropping only to 81.
ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING
In effect until the Fourth of July.
The latest Metro news
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METROPOLITAN diary
Surveyor says
Dear Diary:
It was a workday morning, and I was standing with the normal New York City mosaic of people at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. The skies were threatening, but it was not quite raining yet.
Near me was a tall man in a safety jacket. He had a long staff that was more than twice his height. He was holding it like a flagpole with no flag.
I looked across the avenue and saw another man in a safety jacket who was peering into a surveyor’s tool.
“Good,” I heard over the walkie-talkie the man with the staff had. He moved a few feet and stood still again.
I looked back across the avenue. The surveyor had disappeared. All I saw now was a young woman with a wide black umbrella that was open on her shoulder. She was twirling it and blocking the surveyor while taking a selfie.
I turned back to the man with the staff.
“The lady with the umbrella …,” I said, grimacing.
“Life in New York,” he said, “you have to be patient, philosophical.”
I looked back toward the surveyor and saw the woman with the umbrella twirling her way across Fifth Avenue.
— Tom Hurwitz
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B.
P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here.
Davaughnia Wilson, Stefano Montali and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].
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James Barron writes the New York Today newsletter, a morning roundup of what’s happening in the city.
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