Andrew Yang concedes in New York City mayoral race
- New York City residents cast ballots in Democratic primary that will all but certainly select next mayor
- Andrew Yang, who previously spent months as the front-runner, concedes in fourth place
Former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang conceded the New York City mayoral race on Tuesday after early results showed him in a distant fourth place among more than a dozen Democrats seeking their party’s nomination.
“I am a numbers guy,” Yang, once seen as the front-runner, told supporters. “And I am not going to be the next mayor of New York city based on upon the numbers that have come in tonight. I am conceding this race.”
As results trickled in, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, a former police captain who co-founded a leadership group for black officers, was in a tight race with former city sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia and former de Blasio administration lawyer Maya Wiley.
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Yang had risen to the top of the pack in early polls thanks to the celebrity status he garnered on social media during his failed presidential campaign. But he was criticised throughout the mayoral campaign for leaving New York City at the height of the pandemic. He made a number of gaffes throughout the campaign, including not knowing New York City subway routes.
In the final days of the campaign, Yang sought to boost his chances by forming an alliance with Garcia. The pair made a number of campaign stops together and he urged his supporters to rank her number two on their ballots, despite Garcia not returning the favour.
Adams would be the city’s second black mayor. He’s made public safety his campaign’s central message while also appealing to his past advocacy in politics calling for reforms to the city’s police department.
With Wiley and Garcia, the city could elect its first woman as mayor. Yang would have been the city’s first Asian-American mayor.
With the debut of the ranked voting system and a mountain of postal votes still at least a week away from being counted, it could be July before a winner emerges in the Democratic contest to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio.
After polls closed at 9pm, New York City’s Board of Elections began releasing results of votes cast in person, but that initial picture could be misleading because it will only include data on who candidates ranked as their first choice.
The ranked choice system, approved for use in New York City primaries and special elections by referendum in 2019, allowed voters to rank up to five candidates on their ballot.
Vote tabulation is then done in computerised rounds, with the person in last place getting eliminated each round, and ballots cast for that person getting redistributed to the surviving candidates based on voter rankings. That process continues until only two candidates are left. The one with the most votes wins.
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It won’t be until June 29 that the Board of Elections performs a tally of those votes using the new system. It won’t include any postal votes in its analysis until July 6, making any count before then potentially unreliable.
More than 87,000 postal votes had been received by the city as of Monday, with more expected to arrive in the mail over the next few days.
Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg
