Ranked-Choice Voting in NYC Faces Its Make-or-Break Moment

“We are seeing more mayoral candidates talk about ranked-choice voting earlier,” she said. “It’s more of a dialog with the voters. It also means the candidates themselves reach out and take the time to appear at events in parts of the community that previously they have not bothered to talk to.”

But the political dynamics of this election are complicated. Because New York City is so heavily Democratic, the primary outcomes often determine the result of the general election. Moreover, New York’s primaries are closed, meaning that only voters registered as Democrats will be able to vote on Tuesday. But this year, the general election may be actually competitive, with a larger universe of voters determining the outcome. Adams is running as an independent, and there is a good chance that, if Mamdani is the runner-up in the Democratic primary, the Working Families Party will put him on its party line. (The Working Families Party currently has a “placeholder” candidate as its nominee, who can be swapped out after the Democratic primary.)

Harry Siegel, a columnist for the Daily News, said that the focus on Cuomo and Mamdani was edging out consideration of other candidates who do not have the baggage of the former, and the relative inexperience of the latter. “The choice that both Cuomo and Mamdani have promoted to this day is that ‘this is what you have to decide between,’” Siegel said. “That is remarkably distinct from what New Yorkers seem to want, which is someone who’s not exhausting, scandal-prone, and difficult in the vein of Adams or Cuomo, and who has something more to offer in terms of actually delivering things than, I would say, Mamdani.”

Because Mamdani is seen as the most credible alternative to Cuomo in terms of polling, it may have inspired the more moderate candidates to carve out their own lane—but they could find it hard to leverage that strategy into success. In an interview with the New York Editorial Board, Adrienne Adams said that the system “makes things different for sure.”