Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani could clinch victory Tuesday when the New York City Board of Elections releases the first look at the ranked-choice voting results from the June 24 primary.
The board’s report will also provide more data on how primary voters viewed Mamdani’s candidacy after a week of conversations about what his performance means for the party and the city.
Under the city’s ranked-choice voting rules, if no candidate wins a majority of the first-choice votes, the race is decided by how voters ranked other candidates on their ballots.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman and democratic socialist, emerged on Election Night with 43.5% of the first-choice votes and a significant lead over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The results Tuesday made clear that Mamdani would be heavily favored to cross 50% once ranked-choice tabulation was complete. Mamdani had a cross-endorsement with the only other candidate who won more than 10% of the vote, city Comptroller Brad Lander. And much of the rest of the field had encouraged voters to leave Cuomo off their ballots entirely. Cuomo saw that writing on the wall and conceded the race on Election Night (although he will still be included in today’s results).
How does ranked-choice voting work?
The New York City Board of Elections will release a full, but unofficial, look at the ranked-choice tabulation based on all the ballots processed so far.
In the ranked-choice voting process the city is using, the results are tabulated in rounds with the candidate with the fewest votes being eliminated and people who ranked that candidate first having votes reallocated to their next-highest choice still in the running.
That process continues until only two candidates are left and there’s a winner.
Election officials will run that tabulation on the more than 990,000 ballots the city released last Tuesday, plus any additional ballots processed since then (mail ballots that arrived after Friday weren’t included in the Election Night report).
However, these results won’t be final. There will still be a small number of ballots added to the count between now and when the board certifies the election on July 15. While these ballots could shift the order in which lower-rated candidates are eliminated, it’s highly unlikely they’ll have any impact on the final results.
Hasn’t Mamdani won already?
There’s very little reason to think the results won’t show Mamdani beating Cuomo in the final round.
About 20% of voters ranked someone other than Mamdani or Cuomo first. Without accounting for the additional ballots that will be added to the count, that means that for Mamdani to win, he needs to be ranked ahead of Cuomo on only about one-third of ballots for that went for other candidates in the first round.
Realistically, an even smaller number would secure his victory since a sizable number of votes will drop out of the calculation as voters’ top choices are eliminated, reducing the number of votes required to win a majority.
Because of these “exhausted” ballots, Mamdani’s percentage of the vote in the final round will be higher than it is now, even before accounting for other voters who had ranked him lower on their ballots.
All that being said, it’s theoretically possible Cuomo wins. Until the board releases the results, there’s no way to know for certain how that 20% of the vote breaks down.
What else could we learn?
The ranked-choice system will give a rare peek at how voters who supported lower-ranking candidates feel about their likely nominee.
If a large share of those 20% ranked Mamdani ahead of Cuomo, it could demonstrate Mamdani’s ability to expand his coalition beyond his core supporters. On the other hand, if many voters are more supportive of Cuomo or left both men of their ballots, it could indicate wider uncertainty about the progressive candidate.
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