NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Eric Adams held onto his lead in the New York City mayoral race as the latest vote tallies were released on Tuesday, with Kathryn Garcia a few percentage points behind.
Adams garnered 51.1% of the votes in the city’s 11th round of ranked-choice voting, while Garcia’s tally stood at 48.9%, data released by the city’s Board of Elections shows.
The results released on Tuesday were not final, as more than 124,000 Democratic absentee ballots have yet to be counted.
When voting ended June 22, Adams had a lead of around 75,000 votes over Wiley. Garcia followed close behind in third place.
As of Tuesday, Adams was leading Garcia by 15,908 votes, the BOE data showed. Elections officials plan on conducting another round of ranked choice analysis on July 6 that includes absentee ballots.
New York City’s primary went into a state of suspended animation a week ago while officials prepared to give the public its first look at results from the city’s new ranked choice voting system.
Under the system, voters could rank up to five candidates in order of preference.
Since no candidate got more than 50% of the vote, a computer then began tabulating ballots in a series of rounds that work like instant run-offs.
In each round, the candidate in last place is eliminated. Votes cast for that person are then redistributed to the surviving candidates, based on whoever voters put next on their ranking list. That process repeats until there are only two candidates left.
The process of tabulating those rounds only takes a little time but when voting ended on June 22, elections officials only released results showing who voters put down as their first choice for the job.
The Democratic primary winner will be the prohibitive favorite in the general election against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican founder of the Guardian Angels.
Either Adams, a former police captain who currently serves as Brooklyn's borough president, or Wiley would be the second Black mayor of New York City, and either Garcia, the city's former Sanitation Commissioner, or Wiley would be the first woman mayor.
Adams, 60, is a moderate Democrat who opposed the “defund the police” movement and said that under his leadership, the city could find a way to fight crime while also combating a legacy of racial injustice in policing.
He was previously a state senator before becoming Brooklyn’s borough president, a job in which he lacks lawmaking power, but handles some constituent services and discretionary city spending.
Wiley, 57, served as counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and previously chaired a civilian panel that investigates complaints of police misconduct. A former legal analyst for MSNBC, she ran as a progressive who would cut $1 billion from the police budget and divert it to other city agencies.
Garcia, 51, is a city government veteran who ran as a nonideological crisis manager well-suited to guiding New York out of a once-in-a-century pandemic.
Garcia ran the department of sanitation from 2014 until leaving last September to explore a run for mayor. De Blasio also tapped Garcia to run an emergency food distribution program during the coronavirus pandemic after earlier appointing her interim chair of the city’s embattled public housing system.
She earlier served as chief operating officer of the city’s department of environmental protection, responsible for water and sewer systems.
Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang attracted wide media interest when he joined the race in January and led in early polls, but his support dwindled by primary day. He has already conceded defeat.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.