Politics

Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia In Nail-Biting Race To Become New York City’s Next Mayor

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Brooklyn Borough President and former NYPD officer Eric Adams and former New York Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia are in a neck-and-neck race to be New York City’s next mayor after additional rounds of ranked choice voting completed Tuesday.

Adams, who polls showed as the frontrunner in the final days before the June 22 primary, led Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, by over nine points, former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia by 12 points and Andrew Yang, who promptly conceded last Tuesday, by 20 after the first round of voting.

But with rounds two through 11 now tabulated, Adams leads Garcia 51.1% to 48.9%, with Garcia soaring into second and passing Wiley, who was officially eliminated. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to list candidates in order of preference instead of selecting just one, meaning that Adams’ lead on night one was not set in stone.

Though Adams still holds a narrow lead, the race is far from decided. New York City election officials will not release vote counts from tens of thousands of absentee ballots until July 6, meaning that if Garcia outperforms Adams among mail-in voters she could win.

A final count is not expected before July 12, nearly three weeks after the election first began.

Adams has centered his campaign around lowering New York City’s crime rate, prompting most of its police organizations to endorse him. He has supported past use of stop-and-frisk, opposes the “defund the police” movement and has said that he will carry if elected, putting him at odds with many of his fellow candidates and making him a target of the progressive left.

Garcia has emphasized policies aimed at rejuvenating small businesses and helping the city combat climate change, earning her endorsements from The New York Times and New York Daily News.

Garcia and Yang even joined forces in the final weekend of campaigning in a bid to stop his momentum, prompting Adams to accuse them of trying to suppress the votes of people of color and “steal” the election from him, despite the fact that no votes had yet been tallied.

If Adams becomes the Democratic nominee, he will face Republican Curtis Sliwa in November’s general election and will likely win in a landslide given New York City’s liberal electorate.