Democratic socialist Queens lawmaker Zohran Mamdani has officially won the Democratic primary Tuesday, growing his lead over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to 12%, according to ranked-choice voting tabulations newly released by the city Board of Elections.
Mamdani clinched the race on July 1 after nabbing 56% of the vote in the 3rd round of ranked-choice; Cuomo trailed at 44%. The contest only went to three rounds because the nine other candidates besides Mamdani and Cuomo were axed following the second round under what is known as batch elimination, in which two or more candidates can be dropped at the same time if their first choice votes combined is less than those for the candidates immediately ahead of them.
The 543,344 votes Mamdani received through ranked-choice voting represent the highest total a Democratic mayoral primary winner received in more than 36 years. In the non-ranked-choice Democratic mayoral primary of 1989, David Dinkins won with 547,901 votes, besting then-Mayor Ed Koch and two other rivals.
More than one million New Yorkers voted in this year’s primary, also the highest turnout since the 1989 election.
Mamdani also blew far past Mayor Eric Adams’ 7,000-vote ranked-choice win over then-city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia in 2021.
“I am humbled by the support of more than 545,000 New Yorkers who voted for our campaign and am excited to expand this coalition even further as we defeat Eric Adams and win a city government that puts working people first,” Mamdani said in a statement.
The BOE conducted the tabulations using in-person votes, including both early and Election Day ballots, and all mail-in ballots collected by Election Day. It will continue running ranked-choice tabulations each week until all of the absentee and affidavit votes have been counted and certified.
The result merely confirmed what was already clear from Election Day returns, when Mamdani notched a significant edge over Cuomo in first-round votes — 44% to 36%: that the Assembly member is the Democratic mayoral nominee. In the November general election, Mamdani will face incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, along with Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and independent attorney Jim Walden.
BOE spokesperson Vinny Ignizio said the board will not provide a detailed breakdown for how votes transferred for one candidate to another until the board has received and certified all of the ballots. But Mamdani presumably received many second-place votes from Lander, with whom he was cross-endorsed, and other second-place candidates on the New York Working Families Party slate.
There was also a concerted effort, led by WFP and the “Don’t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor” (DREAM) campaign, to sway voters against ranking voters on their ballots.
Cuomo, who conceded the race on June 24, finished with 428,530 votes.
Cuomo campaign ‘determining next steps’
Rich Azzopardi, Cuomo’s spokesperson, left the door open for him to run in the general election on an independent line even in light of Tuesday’s results, while insisting they are not representative of the whole electorate.
“Extremism, division and empty promises are not the answer to this city’s problems, and while this was a look at what motivates a slice of our primary electorate, it does not represent the majority,” Azzopardi said. The financial instability of our families is the priority here, which is why actionable solutions, results and outcomes matter so much. We’ll be continuing conversations with people from all across the city while determining next steps.”
City Comptroller Brad Lander came in third with 11%, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams came fourth with 4%, former city Comptroller Scott Stringer came fifth with close to 2%, and Brooklyn state Sen. Zellnor Myrie came sixth with 1%.
