NYC Mayoral Primary Update

As Bill De Blasio's days as mayor come to a close, and as he takes stock of his eight-year reign of the world's greatest city, New Yorkers went to the polls yesterday to nominate the candidates to succeed him (and for all of the other city elected offices as well, excluding three district attorneys). 

Who did they vote for? Look here:

Of course, all of these primary election results are just the raw totals of the in-person votes cast yesterday -- the early and absentee votes remain to the counted, and the process of rank-choice eliminations that will bump some candidates up needs to happen -- so some of the people currently in the lead might still lose once all these other votes are tallied.

That said, there was some big news last night -- Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams took a decisive lead in the Democratic primary showing the formidable power of the black vote, and Brooklyn in general, in NYC politics. If he gets upset by the absentee/ranked-choice votes, it will be either to Maya Wiley or Kathryn Garcia both of whom, until quite recently, barely registered in the polls and media coverage but proved to be great candidates. 

And just to prove that polls and media coverage don't translate into a great candidacy and hard votes, just look at Andrew Yang -- the early "frontrunner" utterly collapsed, coming in 4th place, and has already been eliminated and conceded. It's quite a face-plant to be the person getting all the coverage, big endorsements, and polling love only to wind up losing so badly. It turns out that being totally unqualified and saying dumb things ultimately doesn't sell with voters who care very much about the future of their city. I hope (probably quixotically) that this will spell the end of people like this, these "celebrity" candidates, from running -- at least for NYC mayor.

Also, in the Republican primary, longtime NYC media personality and vigilante (sorry, Guardian Angel) Curtis Sliwa won. I obviously hope he loses the generally election -- badly -- especially since the Democratic candidate will be strong -- but don't count this guy out. He could win. Don't underestimate his appeal Sliwa has been a public figure in this city for a long time, he's a superb media manipulator, he's tireless in getting around town (he literally pounds the pavement, I even blogged about it in 2018), and he's big personality. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want him to win -- but while many in the media and political class might think of him as a joke, we saw what happened five years ago when people thought the same of another certain candidate for high office -- and we reaped the whirlwind. It could happen again -- and it could happen here.

To be continued.