By Samantha Maldonado and Katie Honan, THE CITY | Editorial credit: lev radin / Shutterstock.com

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani (D-Queens) cemented his lead in the mayoral primary election, securing a majority of the vote after just two rounds of ranked choice tabulations, according to the Board of Elections Tuesday.

The BOE first eliminated votes for write-in candidates, redistributing any ranked choices to candidates on the ballot. Then, in the next round, it eliminated all other candidates besides Mamdani and Cuomo. Mamdani emerged as the clear winner with 56%, or a total of 545,334 votes. Cuomo ultimately received 44% of votes, or 428,530 votes.

Mamdani picked up 99,069 votes, and Cuomo added 53,493 votes, with 52,919 ballots exhausted, meaning voters had ranked neither Mamdani nor Cuomo.

In a statement, Mamdani said he is “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.”

On Tuesday, Cuomo’s team had not committed to campaigning fully for the general election, where he’s still on the ballot. Spokesman Rich Azzopardi said the campaign will “be continuing conversations with people from all across the city while determining next steps.”

“From the bottom of our hearts we thank the 428,530 New Yorkers who chose to rank Governor Cuomo as their choice for mayor and who believed in his vision to get the city back on track,” he said in a statement.

“Andrew Cuomo’s focus now is the same as it has been throughout the campaign: To bring real change to working people, to help all New Yorkers thrive by dealing with affordability, housing, education and safe communities, and by bringing our city together.”

The BOE ran through every ranked-choice decision on the more than 900,000 ballots cast, eliminating all the candidates who were not Mamdani or Cuomo as a batch, including city Comptroller Brad Lander, who came in third with 11.2%. That’s because those candidates’ combined vote total in the first round was less than the first-round total for Cuomo, who finished in second.

In ranked choice elections, voters may choose up to five candidates in order of preference. The candidates with the fewest votes in a round get eliminated, and if a voter ranked any of those candidates first on the ballot, the vote gets transferred to the next highest-ranked candidate, and so on.

To win, a single candidate must reach more than 50% of votes.

These results are still not final. The BOE does not expect results to be certified until mid-July, as voters must return corrected absentee ballots by July 14 for them to be included in the official count.

This year’s election was the second mayoral contest to use the ranked choice voting system, which was approved by voters through a ballot provision in 2019. Eric Adams won the 2021 primary, the first to use ranked choice voting, although he was critical of the process at the time.

This year’s race included the first major cross-endorsements between candidates, as Mamdani and Lander supported one another a few weeks before primary day.

The Working Families Party also endorsed a Democratic slate, with Mamdani and Lander at the top.

There was also a concerted “Don’t Rank Cuomo” effort from the WFP and other players who coalesced in a push to ensure the former governor wasn’t elected.

Other candidates significantly lagged in the ranked-choice results and conceded on primary night.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who entered the race relatively late, came in fourth, while former city Comptroller Scott Stringer came in fifth.

State Sen. Zellnor Myrie, former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, former Assemblymember Michael Blake, state Sen. Jessica Ramos, Paperboy Love Prince and Selma Bartholomew trailed the field.

Stunning Upset, Crowded General

After polls closed Tuesday, the BOE counted first-choice votes made in person, plus any early mail or absentee ballots received by June 20. Based on that count, Mamdani pulled far ahead of Cuomo, 43.5% to 36.4%, leading the former governor to concede the race that night.

It was a stunning upset. Cuomo, 67, had resigned in disgrace after multiple accusations of sexual harassment, but was the early frontrunner in the race against Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist.

He congratulated his rival on stage for “a really smart and good and impactful campaign.”

“Tonight is his night, he deserved it, he won, and we’re gonna take a look, we’ll make some decisions,” he said to a gathering of stunned supporters.

The two campaigns couldn’t have been more different. Mamdani launched a bid centered around affordability and looked like he was having fun on the trail. He shook hands with voters across boroughs, churned out a series of viral videos to generate online attention and relied on thousands of volunteers who fanned across the city to turn out new and young voters.

Cuomo, on the other hand, rarely made public appearances or spoke to the press, instead leaning on his name recognition from many years in statewide office. He relied on this coalition of democratic elites and union backers and used paid canvassers to spread his message that he had the leadership chops to fix a city in crisis. More than $30 million was spent on his behalf, more than triple the spending for Mamdani.

Mailers and television ads for Cuomo attacked Mamdani as inexperienced and antisemetic. But multiple candidates, political committees and the Working Families Party painted Cuomo as corrupt and scandal-ridden in ads and public speeches and urged voters: “Don’t Rank Cuomo.”

Now, the November election looms. Typically, in deep blue New York City, the winner of the Democratic primary takes the general, but Mamdani will face several other challengers.

Cuomo, who is mulling a serious independent challenge, will appear on the “Fight and Deliver” line on the ballot regardless. Mayor Eric Adams also launched his independent bid last week. Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, will run as the Republican candidate, and former federal prosecutor Jim Walden is also on the ballot.

While some former Cuomo-backers, like Brooklyn Democratic party chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn and unions like 32BJ SEIU and the Hotel and Games Trade Council, moved to support Mamdani in the general, others are mobilizing to ensure he does not become mayor. Some leaders in real estate and finance are coalescing around Adams, whom they see as a more moderate and friendlier to business, despite the multiple scandals that have engulfed his administration.