Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo conceded New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary to Zohran Mamdani as the 33-year old member of the state Assembly had a significant lead in the race Tuesday night.
Cuomo’s concession came as the race’s outcome will be decided by a ranked choice count after neither Democrat got a clear majority in the vote.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist member of the state Assembly, started to pull ahead with more than an estimated 80% of ballots counted.
This is the dream of ranked choice. The more candidates the better.
Don’t understand why it wasn’t done this way in the first place. RCV was approved as a New York City Charter amendment by a voter initiative in 2019, but only applies to primary city elections, not general. You’d think procedurally it would be easier to justify altering the general election process that the Constitution actually applies to, rather than what is technically internal business of independent private organizations (the Democratic and the Republican parties).
I don’t realize it wouldn’t be in the main election. If so, then Cuomo better not run… Maybe they do it like this as a stepping stone. Get everybody used to the process in the primaries before rolling it out to the main.