Eric Adams wins Democratic primary for NYC mayor [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the Democratic mayoral primary.
• Adams defeated second placer Kathryn Garcia as well as candidates Maya Wiley and Andrew Yang.
• The Board of Elections implemented a ranked-choice voting during the primary race.

Eric Adams had a landslide victory in the New York City (NYC) Democratic mayoral primary, per the Associated Press’ projection. The Brooklyn Borough president is set to face Republican candidate and founder of the Guardian Angels, Curtis Sliwa, in the November election.

A former police captain, Adams defeated fellow Democrat candidates such as former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, civil rights lawyer Maya Wiley and NYC Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia.

In a statement before the race got called, Adams said that “while there are still some very small amounts of votes to be counted, the results are clear: an historic, diverse, five-borough coalition led by working-class New Yorkers has led us to victory in the Democratic primary for Mayor of New York City.” 

“Now we must focus on winning in November so that we can deliver on the promise of this great city for those who are struggling, who are underserved, and who are committed to a safe, fair, affordable future for all New Yorkers,” he added.

Based on the latest tally from the NYC Board of Elections Tuesday, Adams had a slight lead of 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent against Garcia. Wiley got excluded from the race after placing third during the eighth round of counting last week.

The race was the first time that the electors enforced a ranked-choice voting, where voters are advised to list his/her top five candidates from the most to least preferred.

If there’s no candidate who reached the 50 percent threshold, the candidate who garnered the least votes will be out. Then another round of voting will proceed until there’s a winner.

The recent format, though, faced backlash when the NYC Board of Elections announced that about 135,000 pilot-test “votes” still remained from the system and were counted during the unofficial results.

The results drew flak from the Democratic candidates as well as from GOPs.

Source: The Hill