New York City could be on the cusp of electing a radical Muslim socialist as its next mayor — even though he may not be voters’ first choice.
On Tuesday, electors in the Big Apple will head to the polls to cast ballots in the city’s Democrat mayoral primary. With incumbent Mayor Eric Adams set to run as an independent this fall, competition for the Democrat nomination has remained close between two candidates: former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani.
While Cuomo — who oversaw New York’s deadly Covid-era nursing home scandal — is generally considered to be the frontrunner in the race, a seemingly rising Mamdani could be propelled to victory thanks to the city’s ranked-choice voting system.
According to the New York Post, a new Emerson College poll found, “In its hypothetical initial round of voting, Cuomo’s lead shrinks to 3 percentage points, with 35% of likely Democratic voters supporting him compared to 32% for Mamdani and 13% for city Comptroller Brad Lander.” Because no candidate garnered more than 50 percent of the vote, the report noted, “the ranked choice system kicks in,” resulting in Mamdani “finally surpass[ing] Cuomo in the eighth round of the simulated ranked choice voting — 51.8% to 48.2%.”
Under RCV, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.
If an NYC Democrat primary elector, for example, marks a lesser-known candidate in the race as his first choice, and that candidate gets eliminated after the first round of voting, his vote will go to the candidate he marked as his second choice. Thus, the elector’s vote isn’t actually going to the candidate he primarily wanted to vote for.
Should the results of Emerson’s survey prove to be accurate, it’s possible that a plurality of NYC Democrat primary voters could select Cuomo as their first choice, only to then end up with Mamdani as their nominated candidate due to ranked-choice voting. Such a potential outcome demonstrates the pitfalls of the RCV system, in which voters’ first choice candidate is not always the one who ultimately receives their votes.
RCV has been shown to result in inaccurate election results and high quantities of discarded ballots. While RCV has largely been advanced by Democrats as a way of winning seats in which Republican candidates have typically received the most votes in the first round of voting, NYC’s embrace of the system shows how it can be utilized by radical leftists to gain power in blue enclaves.
As previously referenced, Cuomo is certainly no saint and by every measure is a leftist in his own right. But Mamdani is equally — if not more — radical.
Throughout his campaign, Mamdani has reportedly voiced support for taxpayer subsidization of so-called “trans” surgeries (including for minors) and health care for illegal aliens, government-owned grocery stores, “free” bus fare and child care, hiking the corporate tax rate, and limiting the NYPD’s “duties relating to mental-health crisis intervention, homelessness outreach and traffic ticketing,” according to the Post. He’s also espoused pro-Hamas sentiments and was previously arrested for participating in a “pro-Palestinian” demonstration outside of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s New York residence in 2023.
Regardless of whether RCV delivers Mamdani a win on Tuesday, that NYC Democrat voters would seemingly make he and Cuomo the two leading contenders to take on Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa this fall is embarrassing. If there were any doubts left that the Big Apple’s residents are committed to furthering the city’s demise, they’re gone now.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
